a    • 


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'ST.0WE 


HEROINES  OF 
MODERN  PROGRESS 


BY 
ELMER  C.  ADAMS 

*  * 

AND 

WARREN  DUNHAM  FOSTER 


ILLUSTRATED 


IRcw 

STUB  G  IS  &  W 
.  COMPANY 


.    ;    V 


All  rights  reserved 


.1 


COPYRIGHT,  1913  BY 
STURGIS  &  WALTON  COMPANY 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  January,  1913 


'  .'. 

• 


• 


FOEEWOED 

BY  ELLEN  M.  HENKOTIN 

Hon.   President   of   General  Federation   of 

Women's  Clubs 

I  am  the  woman,  ark  of  the  law  and  its  breaker, 
Who  chastened  her  steps  and  taught  her  knees  to  be 

meek, 

Bridled  and  bitted  her  heart  and  humbled  her  cheek, 
Parcelled  her  will,  and  cried  "Take  more!'    to  the 

taker, 
Shunned  what  they  told  her  to  shun,  sought  what 

they  bade  her  seek, 
Locked  up  her  mouth  from  scornful  speaking:  now 

it  is  open  to  speak. 

WILLIAM  VAUGHAN  MOODY. 

In  all  causes,  in  all  lands,  the  woman  who 
steps  aside  from  the  beaten  path,  the  pioneer 
woman,  must  make  her  decision  and  abide  by  it: 
she  must  live  her  life  alone.  She  may  be  sur- 
rounded by  family  and  friends,  but  if  she  does 
not  shun  what  they  proscribe  and  seek  what  they 
ordain,  her  inner  life  must  be  passed  in  soli- 
tude. For  creeds  and  philosophies  she  has  no 
care,  unless  she  can  apply  them,  though  she  has 
tried  all  those  of  man's  invention. 

In  the  past  woman  has  occupied  a  far  more 
important  economic  position  than  has  been  con- 
ceded to  her.  While  generalities  are  often  mis- 

255419 


FOKEWOBD 

leading,  the  following  distinction  may  be  made 
between  the  activities  of  man  and  woman.  The 
intellect  and  power  of  man  have  been  given  to 
the  conquest  of  the  earth — the  natural  forces- 
first  for  his  own  use,  as  in  the  individualistic 
age ;  then  for  his  tribe  or  clan ;  and,  in  a  more 
advanced  civilization,  for  his  country.  Woman, 
on  the  contrary,  has  centered  her  activities  on 
developing  the  agencies  which  conserve  life. 
First  as  the  mother  in  the  tent  of  the  nomad  she 
dressed  the  skins  that  her  man  and  their  chil- 
dren might  be  clothed;  she  cultivated  the  corn 
around  the  tent  that  the  family  might  have  a 
permanent  supply  of  food;  she  preserved  the 
meat  against  the  winter.  In  the  tribal  life 
women  carried  on  the  trades  which  underlie  the 
home,  working  in  groups.  Now,  in  modern  city  [ 
life  women  are  endeavoring  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  specialization  necessary  under 
present  conditions  for  both  man  and  woman. 
In  primitive  civilizations  the  woman  alone  ap- 
plied the  industrial  arts  to  the  articles  in  daily 
use.  The  man  did  not  concern  himself  with  the 
form  or  the  ornamentation  of  his  garments ;  the 
woman  not  only  manufactured  the  garments 
worn  by  the  family  but  ornamented  them  as 
well.  These  conditions  still  exist  among  all 
primitive  races,  the  women  doing  the  work,  and 
bearing  and  nursing  the  children.  Even  to-day 
in  many  civilized  countries  either  the  economic 
stress  or  military  duty,  which  must  be  per- 
formed by  the  men,  throw  a  burden,  quite  out 
of  proportion  to  her  limited  power  of  accom- 


FOREWORD 

plishment,  on  the  shoulders  of  the  woman.  It  is 
estimated  that  the  German  woman  supports  the 
civil  list  of  the  government.  In  the  United 
States,  where  women  are  considered  more  for- 
tunate than  elsewhere,  the  last  census  shows 
that  approximately  eight  million  women  are 
wage-earners  and  this  number  does  not  include 
those  women  who  do  their  housework,  only  the 
wage-earners.  Thus  woman  has  always  been 
and  still  is  in  the  labor-market  and  in  industry, 
and  it  is  vain  to  decry  her  contribution  to 
primitive  or  modern  civilization.  It  is  true 
that  a  larger  number  of  men  than  of  women 
have  scaled  the  heights  of  genius,  but,  while  the 
men  were  climbing,  all  women  were  laboring  to 
sustain  life,  and  thus  materially  increase  the 
sum  of  human  comfort  and  happiness.  In  re- 
calling ancient  days,  the  thought  of  the  hard 
and  painful  struggle  of  the  woman  of  the  no- 
madic tribes  to  keep  herself  and  her  children 
alive  is  absolutely  appalling.  To-day  the  peas- 
ant woman  the  world  over  must  toil  almost  day 
and  night  to  wring  a  bare  living  from  a  bit^of 
ground.  The  thousands  of  women  in  modern 
industry — in  factories,  in  stores — succeed  in  se- 
curing on  the  average  but  a  very  meager  wage. 
It  is  true  there  have  been  periods  when 
woman  has  emerged  from  her  semi-seclusion 
and  has  taken  her  part  in  the  world's  honors — 
the  great  women  of  the  Church,  who  founded 
the  missions  which  still  endure,  the  women  who 
have  won  renown  in  the  paths  of  literature, 
and  those  who  in  the  golden  age  of  the  Italian 


FOREWORD 

and  French  renaissance  received  a  European 
tribute  of  recognition  and  admiration.  All 
these  women  were,  however,  exceptions,  and 
exceptionally  placed,  and  the  great  mass  of 
women  profited  not  a  whit  by  their  glory.  The 
interests  of  women  have  in  the  past  been 
strangely  overlooked  in  all  schemes  of  govern- 
ment, in  the  laws  which  control  family  and  civic 
life,  even  in  religious  life.  Only  in  very  recent 
times  has  woman  obtained  a  measure  of  repre- 
sentation and  found  voice  to  express  herself 
as  a  member  of  a  group.  The  individualistic 
life  of  woman  in  the  past,  either  in  tent  or  in 
palace,  has  had  the  effect  of  making  her,  as  a 
general  thing,  extremely  tenacious  of  her  own 
opinions  and  convinced  of  the  importance  of 
her  own  affairs.  Thus  even  in  face  of  the 
splendid  future  of  new  and  wider  opportunities 
before  her,  she  is  sometimes  timid,  apathetic, 
and  bound  by  outworn  conventionalities,  the  old 
ideas  of  the  past  giving  no  place  to  those  of  the 
present  and  the  time  to  come.  At  the  first 
' ' lion  in  her  path"  such  a  one  falls  back 
alarmed,  and  flees  panic-stricken  to  her  old  nar- 
row prison.  But,  for  all  that,  now  as  never 
before  women  are  wide  awake  to  a  realization 
of  their  identical  and  common  interests  as 
women.  The  spirit  of  democracy  is  invading 
even  the  four  walls  of  home;  it  is  calling  them 
out  into  the  world — the  great  impersonal  world 
— to  combine  and  struggle  for  their  rights  and 
privileges,  their  happiness,  and  their  well  being. 
Now,  at  the  bright  dawn  of  a  fairer  day  for 


FOREWORD 

women,  is  a  peculiarly  fitting  moment  to  pause 
and  review,  as  is  done  in  the  case  of  a  group 
of  noble  women  in  the  present  volume,  all  that 
we  owe  to  our  sisters  of  the  past,  beautiful  in 
memory,  who  haunt  us  with  their  charm,  their 
intellect,  their  tenderness,  or  their  power — 
warrior  queens  and  empresses;  women  of  the 
religious  life;  teachers  and  nurses;  humble 
toilers,  heroic  in  patient  endurance ;  brave  pio- 
neers in  reform; — all  those  high  souls  who  in 
one  fashion  or  another  have  left  the  world 
lovelier  and  better  for  their  lives  and  labors. 
The  following  pages  are  concerned  with  pio- 
neers in  modern  progress.  We  Americans  ac- 
knowledge our  debt  to  two  classes  of  these 
pioneers :  to  those  who  in  pain  or  danger  walked 
beside  the  men  on  the  prairies  or  through  the 
forests,  who  shared  their  labors  in  clearing  and 
building,  and  organizing  the  school  and  the 
church;  and  to  those  other  heroines,  true  pio- 
neers, dauntless  yet  tender  spirits,  who  blazed 
new  trails  for  their  sex  in  new  worlds  of 
thought  and  beneficent  effort,  in  philanthropy, 
in  literature  and  in  the  professions.  Souls  of 
high  courage,  belonging  to  this  latter  group, 
are  presented  in  this  book,  women  who  mate- 
rially, intellectually,  and  morally  struck  out 
new  and  perilous  ways,  and  who  pushed  on 
fearlessly  and  without  a  backward  look  in  the 
face  of  derision  and  strong  hostility  alike  from 
their  own  sex  and  from  the  opposite  sex — 
women  who  represent  the  latest  stage  in  a 
progress  that  has  led  from  the  mere  mother  of 


FOKEWORD 

the  family  to  the  mother  of  the  group,  and  soi 
to  the  "World  Mother"  of  to-day;  women  who 
find  their  high  calling  in  devoting  their  hearts 
and  their  intelligence  to  the  mastery  of  great 
problems  in  government,  in  science,  and  in  ad- 
vanced ethics,  upon  which  the  future  welfare 
of  their  sisters  depend.  The  women  of  to-day, 
who  reap  the  harvest  sown  by  the  "heroines  of 
modern  progress,"  can  with  difficulty  appre- 
hend how  dearly  the  pioneers  paid  in  body  and 
in  soul  for  the  privileges  they  now  so  freely 
enjoy.  They  can  only  repay  the  debt  they  owe 
by  a  just  appreciation  of  its  value  and  a  full, 
grateful  recognition  of  the  high  courage  of  those 
who  broke  the  bonds  of  conventionality  and 
opened  wide  for  them  the  door  of  opportunity. 
It  is  to  such  appreciation  and  to  such  recognition 
that  this  book  cannot  fail  to  lead. 


PEEFACE 

For  several  years  requests  have  come  to  me 
for  adequate  snort  biographies  of  those  women 
who  have  done  the  most  for  the  world's  prog- 
ress during  the  last  century.  Members  of  my 
college  classes  in  English  composition  began 
it;  young  men  and  women  alike  told  me  that 
they  were  disappointed  in  being  unable  to  find 
concise  and  readable  statements  of  the  lives 
of  such  women  as  Florence  Nightingale  and 
Frances  Willard.  To  be  sure,  there  were  many 
biographies,  but  these  books,  though  excellent 
in  their  way,  often  proved  lacking  in  some  es- 
sential. Other  teachers — in  public  schools  as 
well  as  in  college — state  librarians  and  village 
librarians,  school  officials,  managers  of  reading 
circles  and  normal  school  executives  reported 
the  same  need.  Even  more  significant,  how- 
ever, have  been  statements  from  fathers  and 
mothers  and  boys  and  girls,  statements  that 
they  wanted  between  two  covers  the  story  of 
the  women  who  have  worked  most  successfully 
to  make  this  world  of  ours  a  better  place  to 
live  in. 

To  meet  this  need,  this  book  has  been  writ- 
ten. Obviously,  one  volume  cannot  contain  the 
biographies  of  all  the  illustrious  heroines  of 
modern  progress ;  the  task  of  selection  has  been 
difficult.  Although  we  have  been  forced  to 


PREFACE 

make  no  mention  of  many  women  whose  deeds 
are  as  well  worth  chronicling  as  some  that  are 
set  forth  here,  we  have  tried  to  include  biog- 
raphies that  are  representative  of  the  best 
feminine  effort  of  the  century.  And  how  far 
reaching  is  that  effort!  How  much  have 
women  contributed  to  the  evolution  of  social 
ethics !  In  the  lives  here  pictured  can  be  read 
the  story  of  modern  progress.  And  in  the 
story  of  modern  progress  can  be  read  these 
lives. 

"Whoever  candidly  studies  modern  progress 
will  find  facts  to  astound  him.  If  the  student 
is  a  man,  he  may  also  be  somewhat  sobered  in 
his  traditional  self -adulation  about  the  superior 
initiative  and  originality  of  his  sex ;  if  a  woman, 
she  may  see  good  reason  to  lift  up  her  heart 
and  rejoice,  because  her  sisters,  far  from  be- 
ing the  dependents  and  imitators  they  were 
once  thought,  have  founded  or  shaped  so  many 
of  our  institutions  that  modern  society,  to  a 
very  great  extent,  is  a  woman-made  society. 
Our  penal  system,  by  which  wrong  doers  are 
reformed  instead  of  flogged;  our  hospitals,  with 
their  life-saving  care,  and  our  nurses  who  pre- 
vent disease  in  the  homes4  of  the  poor  and  aid 
physicians  in  the  homes  of  the  rich;  our 
woman's  colleges,  where  women  are  educated 
to  be  the  peers  of  men,  as  well  as  the  teachers 
of  the  young ;  our  peace-time  service  of  the  Bed 
Cross  that  succors  so  many  victims  of  flood, 
fire,  and  cyclone ;  our  riddance  of  negro  slavery, 
once  the  menace  of  national  honor;  our  tern- 


PREFACE 

perance  societies,  and  all  the  encouragement 
they  lend  to  cleanly  and  sober  living;  our  fast- 
growing  sentiment  for  woman  suffrage,  at- 
tended by  its  train  of  social  reforms ;  our  clubs 
in  which  women,  escaped  from  the  narrowness 
of  the  house,  may  both  amuse  and  instruct 
themselves  in  the  company  of  their  equals,  and 
unite  for  social  service;  our  settlements,  try- 
ing to  distribute  the  benefits  of  civilization  and 
recombine  the  classes  in  a  true  democracy — 
each  of  these  things  is  in  part,  and  most  of 
them  are  for  the  greater  part,  the  work  of 
women. 

But  if  it  surprises  the  reader  that  women 
have  done  so  much,  he  will  ask  what  kind  of 
women  did  it,  and  how  the  various  tasks  upon 
which  they  entered  reacted  upon  them,  as 
women.  For  always  the  question  that  flashes 
out  when  one  speaks  of  woman's  work,  is 
whether  the  woman  was  any  less  a  woman  for 
doing  it.  The  fact  is  that  each  reform  has  been 
the  natural,  almost  the  inevitable,  outgrowth 
of  a  woman's  experience — as  a  woman — and 
the  expression  of  a  rich  feminine  personality. 
The  times  made  the  reformer,  and  the  re- 
former made  the  times ;  and  each  may  be  read 
in  each. 

The  purpose  of  these  little  stories  is  to  show 
how  certain  women,  under  certain  influences, 
grew  into  worth-while  personalities;  and  then 
how  they  reacted  upon  society  in  a  way  that, 
while  still  personal,  touched  so  great  and  gen- 
eral a  need  that  they  became  representatives 


PKEFACE 

of  millions,  and  hence  leaders, — truly  "  hero- 
ines " — of  modern  progress. 

The  stories,  therefore,  are  intimate  charac- 
ter sketches  of  women  in  their  proper  social 
and  historic  setting.  The  endeavor  has  been  to 
avoid  rhapsody  and  the  heaping  up  of  ad- 
jectives. These  feats  of  rhetoric  sometimes 
appear  all  too  common  with  biographers,  par- 
ticularly the  biographers  of  women.  The 
method  attempted  here  has  been  to  show  the 
character  growing,  resolving  and  acting  under 
stimulus — necessarily,  therefore,  more  by  the 
relation  of  incidents  than  by  description.  We 
have  tried,  however,  not  to  smother  our  narra- 
tive by  anecdotes ;  not  to  use  illustrations  that 
do  not  illustrate.  It  is  our  hope  that,  although 
the  characters  thus  sketched  may  not  be  so 
brilliantly  colored,  they  may  be  the  more  ob- 
jective, they  will  appear  in  clearer  outlines- 
and  they  can  be  seen  to  move.  The  women  of 
the  book  are  to  the  authors  interesting  cases 
of  human  nature  in  the  course  of  development. 
The  opinions  most  often  given  are  the  women's 
own  opinions — about  themselves,  and  about 
their  work  and  the  world.  For  the  way  life 
looked  to  them  is,  for  our  purposes,  more  im- 
portant than  the  way  that  they  may  happen  to 
look  to  us,  or  to  any  of  their  admiring  friends. 

It  has  been  with  the  young  woman  of  from 
twelve  to  thirty  in  mind  that  we  have  written 
this  book.  We  feel  we  have  reason  to  hope, 
however,  that  the  stories  we  have  told  will 
appeal  to  her  little  sister,  her  mother  and 


PEEFACE 

her  grandmother — to  say  nothing  of  her  brother 
and  father. 

Acknowledgment  is  due  to  Mr.  M.  A.  De  Wolfe 
Howe  for  valuable  suggestions,  to  Mr.  Gluyas 
Williams  for  his  share  in  the  labor  of  editing, 
to  Mr.  Paul  P.  Foster  for  his  assistance  in  se- 
curing photographs,  to  the  many  individuals 
and  institutions  that  have  furnished  us  mate- 
rial, and  to  the  many  persons,  young  and  old, 
whose  enthusiastic  interest  in  the  lives  of  the 
women  whose  stories  we  have  told  gave  the 
stimulus  that  led  to  the  creation  of  the  book. 
Acknowledgment  is  due,  also,  to  those  friends 
and  relatives  whose  help  has  been  so  intimate 
as  to  be  intangible  but  so  powerful  as  to  have 
been  indispensable. 

When  a  book  is  the  joint  product  of  two 
minds,  it  is  only  fair  to  state  what  the  division 
of  labor  has  been.  In  this  instance  credit  for 
whatever  literary  excellence  there  may  be  is 
due  to  Mr.  Adams.  His  collaborator  has  fur- 
nished but  ideas,  plans  and  suggestions. 

Attention  may  here  be  called  to  the  chronolog- 
ical outline  at  the  end  of  this  volume,  which  af- 
fords a  conspectus  of  each  of  the  lives,  a  broader 
conspectus  of  the  relations  of  each  life  to  the 
others  and  of  all  of  them  to  the  events  and  move- 
ments of  the  time,  and  also  indicates  the  under- 
lying unity  of  the  book  as  a  whole. 

W.  D.  F. 
Boston,  Mass., 

June  15,  1912. 


CONTENTS 

ELIZABETH  FRY 1 

MARY  LYON 30 

ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON 58 

HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE 89 

^FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE  .     .          120 

K  CLARA  BARTON     .     .     . .  147 

X  JULIA  WARD  HOWE 178 

FRANCES  E.  WILLARD 215 

J.  ELLEN  FOSTER 245 

JANE  ADDAMS 280 

CHRONOLOGICAL  OUTLINE  309 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE    ....    Frontispiece 

PACING  PAGE 

/ELIZABETH  FRY 1 

MARY  LYON 30 

ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON 58 

FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE 120 

CLARA  BARTON 146 

JULIA  WARD  HOWE 178 

FRANCES  E.  WILLARD 214 

J.  ELLEN  FOSTER      . 244 

JANE  ADDAMS  280 


J 

1  O 


ELIZABETH  FRY 


leroines  of  Modern  Progress 


ELIZABETH  FEY 

earliest  record  of  the  character  of  Eliza- 
beth Gurney  (Fry)  is  in  a  letter  written  by 
r  mother  before  the  child  was  three  years 
1.    She  said,  in  her  quaint  Quaker  phrase, 
V[y  dove-like  Betsy  scarcely  ever  offends,  and 
in  every  sense  of  the  word,  truly  engag- 
jg."    This  docility,  as  will  be  seen,  did  not 
anif est  itself  so  charmingly  a  few  years  later. 
The  parents  were  liberal  Quakers,  living  in 
prwich,    England.     Elizabeth,    the    third    of 
J3ven  children,  was  born  May  21,  1780.    Dur- 
her  first  twelve  years  she  was  dominated 
her   mother.     That   excellent   woman   had 
^o  formulas  for  child  raising.     She  was  very 
atethodical.     She  divided  the  day  up  into  small 
•irts,  and  allotted  one  part  to  study,  one  to  re- 
:jious  observance,  one  to  gardening  or  house- 
,Drk,  one  to  recreation,  and  so  on.     And  then 
te  took  special  care  to  fill  the  children's  minds 
1th   religious   ideas.    While   walking   in   the 
irden  she  would  tell  them  about  Adam  and 
ve  being  driven  out  of  Eden,  about  the  flood, 
id  the  plague,  and  other  gloomy  instances  of 
[>ivine  wrath. 

The  child  Betty  had  a  nervous  make-up  that 
ceived  more  harm  than  good  from  this  treat- 


2  HEROINES' OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

ment.  The  "method*  did  not  agree  with  ler. 
She  would  not,  or  could  not,  apply  herself  to 
her  lessons  in  that  ceremonious  way,  and  she 
had  the  name  of  being  stupid.  A  name  for  ob- 
stinacy attached  to  her  too — and,  she  admits, 
with  justice.  "I  was  disposed  to  a  sp;rit 
of  contradiction,  always  ready  to  see  thing?  a 
little  differently  from  others,  and  not  willing 
to  yield  my  sentiments  to  theirs.' 

The  gloomy  Bible  stories  stirred  up  her  ,m- 
agination  far  too  much.  The  pleasure  of  >er 
childhood  was  almost  spoiled  through  fear. 
She  suffered  acutely  on  being  left  alone  in  -he 
dark.  At  her  first  sight  of  the  sea,  perhaps  be- 
lieving it  another  deluge,  she  wept  for  terror. 
And  where  her  religious  impressions  ran  coi n- 
ter  to  her  natural  affection,  her  anxiety  flrist 
have  been  extreme.  When  her  mother  slept  in 
the  day  time  she  "used  to  go  gently  to  her  b<-d- 
side  to  listen,  from  the  awful  fear  that  she  (lid 
not  breathe.''  And  as  for  the  rest  of  the  fam- 
ily, she  wished  two  large  walls  would  crrsh 
them  all  together,  that  they  might  perish  at 
once,  and  thus  avoid  the  misery  of  each  other's 
death. 

When  Elizabeth  was  twelve  years  old,  the 
mother  died,  and  she  came  under  the  care— or 
rather  the  neglect — of  her  liberal-minded  and 
easy-going  father.  For  a  time  she  held  away 
from  the  rigid  course  in  which  she  had  been 
brought  up,  and  became  a  "fly-away"  creature, 
whose  only  pleasure  was  in  society.  She  had 
a  tall,  slender  figure,  and  a  pleasing 


ELIZABETH  FEY  3 

nance,  with  "a  profusion  of  soft,  flaxen  hair"; 
in  conversation  she  was  brisk  and  pert,  and 
never  lacked  for  an  original,  witty  rejoinder; 
and  it  was  not  unnatural  that  for  the  next  five 
years  she  should  turn  these  graces  to  account. 

She  learned  to  ride,  as  most  English  country 
women  do.  She  learned  to  sing  and  to  dance, 
against  the  rules  of  the  strict  Quakers,  and 
indulged  in  these  amusements  within  her 
father's  house.  The  study  that  she  formerly 
put  upon  religion  she  now  put  upon  dress, 
sometimes  scandalizing  the  sober  brethren  in 
the  meeting  house  by  wearing  "smart  purple 
boots,  laced  with  scarlet."  She  gave  dinners 
and  attended  them;  she  ran,  "almost  beside 
herself,"  to  hear  the  band  play  in  the  square; 
she  went  to  the  opera,  and  was  made  giddy  on 
seeing  the  Prince  and  being  seen  by  him.  More 
than  that,  her  mind  strayed  far  from  religious 
themes  and  she  became  a  hardened  doubter. 
"I  seldom  or  never  thought  of  religion,"  she 
says.  "I  gave  way  freely  to  the  weaknesses 
of  youth.  I  was  flirting,  idle,  rather  proud  and 
vain  till  the  time  I  was  seventeen." 

Due  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  severe 
canons  by  which  she  judged  herself.  In  a 
gayer  society  she  would,  at  her  worst,  prob- 
ably be  thought  a  quiet  and  exemplary  sort  of 
girl.  But  the  Quakers  set  up  an  ideal  of  so- 
berness that  her  bubbling  spirits  led  her  to 
deny  every  day. 

When  she  was  /about  seventeen,  however,  the 
prevailing  modes  of  thought  and  the  remem- 


4    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

bered  lessons  of  her  mother  began  to  disturb 
her  conscience.  She  was  too  much  "wrapped 
up  in  trifles/'  and  wanted  a  greater  stimulus  t 
virtue.  "I  am  in  a  most  idle  mind,"  she  wrot 
in  her  journal,  "and  inclined  to  have  an  indo- 
lent, dissipated  day.  Company  to  dinner;  I 
must  beware  of  being  a  flirt,  it  is  an  abominable 
character ;  I  hope  I  shall  never  be  one,  and  yet 
I  fear  I  am  one  now  a  little.  Be  careful  not" 
to  talk  at  random.  If  I  do  pass  this  day  with- 
out one  foolish  action,  it  is  the  first  I  have  ever 
passed  so." 

With  her  mind  in  this  state,  it  was  easy  for 
her  friends  to  ply  her  on  the  subject  of  reli- 
gion. They  advised  her  to  read  books  and 
tracts  on  it.  But  she  would  do  no  such  thing. 
She  said  if  she  was  to  consider  the  subject  at 
all,  she  would  read  the  New  Testament  and 
judge  clearly  for  herself.  She  did  begin  the 
reading — and  the  result  took  her  violently  b; 
surprise. 

Her  sins  found  her  out  in  a  most  amazing 
fashion.  She  was  flirtatious;  she  got  out  of 
temper  with  the  children;  she  contradicted 
without  cause;  she  mumped  when  her  sisters 
were  liked  and  she  was  not;  she  lost  her  tem- 
per; gave  way  to  luxury;  was  idle  in  mind; 
spoke  satirically  to  the  hurt  of  others;  was 
occupied  too  much  with  trifles,  such  as  dress; 
she  was  inclined  to  be  extravagant  in  her  own 
expenses  and  mean  in  her  gifts  to  others.  In 
fact,  a  great  many  of  her  bad  impulses  were 
allowed  to  sway  her,  and  she  did  not  hearken 


ELIZABETH  FRY  5 

as  she  ought  to  the  good.  And  some  days, 
after  a  " storm  of  pleasure,'  her  mind  was 
hopelessly  dissatisfied  and  "flat." 

Then  one  night  she  dreamed  she  stood  on  a 
beach.  The  tide  rose  and  surrounded  her,  she 
could  not  run,  the  water  was  about  to  wash  her 
away,  and  she  had  all  the  terror  of  being 
drowned.  This  vision  was  repeated  the  next 
night  and  the  next,  and  so  for  weeks,  until  she 
dreaded  to  go  to  sleep.  She  had  already  re- 
solved to  seek  relief,  if  it  were  possible,  in  re- 
ligion, when  William  Savery,  an  American 
Quaker,  came  to  Norwich.  After  hearing  him 
preach  one  Sunday,  when  she  sat  in  a  row  with 
her  six  sisters,  she  was  deeply  moved,  and  wept 
most  of  the  way  home.  "What  he  said  and 
what  I  felt  was  like  a  refreshing  shower  fall- 
ing upon  earth  that  had  been  dried  up  for 
ages."  And  that  night  she  dreamed  the  sea 
was  coming  as  usual,  but  she  was  beyond  its 
reach!  She  believed  the  dream  was  an  omen 
from  heaven ;  and  from  that  day,  one  sister  tes- 
tifies, "her  love  of  pleasure  and  the  world 
seemed  gone,"  and  the  leading  aim  of  her  life 
was  to  abound  in  piety. 

She  did  not  at  once  unite  with  the  Quaker 
sect.  Her  "obstinacy"  or  independence  of 
spirit  prevented  that.  She  prayed  not  to  be 
led  away  by  enthusiasm  or  the  opinions  of 
others,  but  to  consult  the  Power  or  Light 
within  at  every  step.  She  knew  she  had  reli- 
gion; but  she  was  not  conscious  of  any  definite 
sectarian  leanings ;  and  if  she  ever  did  join  the 


6    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

communion  of  any  church  she  did  not  want  to 
repent  it. 

However,  she  awoke  one  morning  in  an  un- 
comfortable state,  and  was  astonished  that  she 
felt  a  scruple  against  dancing.  She  weighed 
the  matter  carefully,  testing  her  feelings  for 
several  weeks  in  the  family  dances  at  home  and 
in  those  at  the  houses  of  her  friends.  She 
found  that  the  exercise  carried  her  "far  be- 
yond the  center "  of  calm  reason  and  made  her 
do  things  she  later  regretted.  "If  I  could 
make  a  rule  never  to  give  way  to  vanity,  excite- 
ment or  flirting,  I  do  not  think  I  should  object 
to  dancing;  but  it  always  leads  me  into  one  of 
these  faults.'  So,  after  a  little  more  debating, 
she  set  down  the  decision  in  her  journal,  "John 
is  just  come  in  to  ask  me  to  dance  in  such  a 
kind  way — oh,  dear  me !  Remember  this,  as  I 
have  this  night  refused  to  dance  with  my  dear- 
est brother,  I  must  out  of  kindness  to  him  not 
be  tempted  by  any  one  else.  Have  mercy,  O 
God,  have  mercy  upon  me !  Let  me  act  rightly, 
I  humbly  pray  Thee. ' ' 

Singing  and  music  of  all  kinds  she  shortly 
gave  up,  though  her  natural  heart  loved  them, 
because  they  increased  all  the  wild  passions  and 
worked  on  enthusiasm.  Yet  people  sometimes, 
not  knowing  her  opinions,  would  ask  her  to 
dance  or  sing,  and  it  embarrassed  her  greatly 
to  refuse.  Hence  she  assumed  the  Quaker 
garb,  the  cap  and  close  handkerchief,  and  the 
drab  colored  gown.  For,  she  concluded, 
"Plainness  appears  to  be  a  sort  of  protection. 


ELIZABETH  FEY  7 

to  the  principles  of  Christianity."  And  it  was 
only  another  short  step  to  the  adoption  of  the 
numerical  style  of  dates — because  the  months 
and  days  were  named  after  pagan  gods — and 
the  custom  of  using  "thee"  and  "thy"  in  her 
speech. 

At  last  Elizabeth  Gurney  was  a  full  fledged 
Quaker;  and  not  in  social  forms  only,  but  in 
her  unfaltering  faith ;  a  faith  so  great  that  she 
could  say  to  a  dying  man  she  knew  the  bless- 
ings of  immortality  so  well  that  she  pitied  not 
his  state. 

This  spiritual  ripening  was  the  thing  she 
thought  about  constantly,  the  thing  she  believed 
most  vital.  In  her  own  mind,  she  was  a  woman 
striving  for  a  pure  and  flawless  religion.  There 
was  another  element  in  her  nature  almost  un- 
regarded by  her.  And  yet  this  element  finally 
wrote  her  name  and  fame  on  the  pages  of  his- 
tory. 

The  girl  had  a  warm  heart  and  was  unusually 
sensitive  to  the  discomforts  of  others.  Her 
obstinacy  related  only  to  matters  touching  her 
personal  conduct.  As  she  said  in  her  eight- 
eenth year,  "I  believe  I  feel  much  for  my  fel- 
low creatures.  I  don't  remember  ever  being 
any  time  with  any  one  who  was  not  extremely 
disgusting  but  I  felt  a  sort  of  love  for  them, 
and  I  do  hope  I  would  sacrifice  my  life  for  the 
good  of  mankind." 

This  tenderness  found  vent  very  early  in  at- 
tentions to  the  poor  and  the  sick  of  Norwich 
town.  She  invited  poor  children  on  Sunday 


8    HEKOINES  OF  MODERN  PEOGEESS 

evenings  to  read  in  the  Testament,  beginning 
with  " Billy' '  and  increasing  one  by  one.  This 
gave  her  so  much  satisfaction  that  she  opened 
a  charity  day  school  at  her  father's  residence, 
which  in  time  accommodated  eighty  pupils. 
She  also  visited  the  sick,  giving  them  religious 
cheer  and  useful  presents  as  well. 

All  this,  however,  she  did  from  the  generous 
impulses  of  her  heart,  and  not  from  a  sense  of 
duty.  It  needed  no  act  of  the  will,  no  dicta- 
tion of  the  church,  not  even  the  counsel  of  Scrip- 
ture. It  was  not  religious,  she  thought;  and 
she  did  not  count  it  to  herself  for  righteous- 
ness. On  the  other  hand,  her  renunciation  of 
frivolous  pleasures,  and  her  devotional  exer- 
cises were  thought  to  be  of  the  greatest  mo- 
ment. The  two  tendencies  in  the  girl  ran  on 
side  by  side — with  all  her  serious  thoughts  di- 
rected upon  the  religious.  They  would  both  de- 
velop strongly,  and  in  ways  she  little  expected. 

Miss  Gurney  at  nineteen  had  already  set  her 
heart  upon  doing  some  active  work  in  the 
church,  when  she  received  offers  of  marriage 
from  Joseph  Fry,  a  London  merchant.  This 
overturned  all  her  theories.  She  had  thought 
the  duties  of  a  wife  incompatible  with  those  of 
a  church  worker.  But  now — whether  her  affec- 
tions were  touched  she  does  not  say — she  was 
not  certain  but  the  Divine  will  enjoined  her  to 
marry,  and  she  could  not  have  "refused  him 
with  a  proper  authority  at  this  time.'  So,  she 
"left  all  to  the  wisdom  of  a  superior  Power,* 
wedded  her  suitor,  and  went  to  live  in  London. 


ELIZABETH  FEY  9 

Here  for  a  time  the  spiritual  cares  of  the 
young  wife  outweighed  all  her  other  interests. 
First  came  the  prompting  to  read  the  Bible 
aloud  in  the  presence  of  her  guests — which  she 
put  off  and  put  off  with  conscience  pricking 
more  and  more,  until  at  last,  "I  began  to  read 
the  forty-sixth  Psalm,  but  was  so  overcome  that 
I  could  hardly  read,  and  gave  it  to  Joseph  to 
finish/'  Then  the  Finger  of  Light  pointed  to 
the  duty  of  praying  for  the  women  who  took  tea 
with  her.  This  threw  her  into  "an  agitation 
not  easy  to  be  described,'  and  made  her  actu- 
ally ill  in  body.  She  was  even  vexed  with  her- 
self because  her  manners  had  too  much  of  the 
courtier  in  them ;  her  aversion  to  hurting  others 
by  telling  them  the  blunt  truth,  she  feared  orig- 
inated in  self  love.  However,  she  was  able  by 
degrees  to  conquer  herself  and  to  measure  up 
to  her  standard  of  Christian  virtue. 

Then  the  cares  of  home  began  to  obsess  her, 
and  for  some  years  she  drifted  away,  as  she 
thought,  from  the  straight  path  of  truth. 
There  were  so  many  guests — the  family  did  not 
have  one-fourth  of  their  meals  alone — so  many 
children — Mrs.  Fry  became  the  mother  of 
eleven — that  all  her  days  were  full  of  worldly 
thoughts.  Her  life  appeared  to  be  spent  to 
little  more  purpose  than  eating,  drinking,  sleep- 
ing and  clothing  herself;  slie  was  as  one  who 
has  "lost  his  pilot  and  is  tossed  about  by  the 
waves  of  the  world." 

Meanwhile,  to  be  sure,  she  was  not  lacking  in 
good  works.  She  found  time  and  means  to  sue- 


10    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

cor  many  destitute  and  ill.  But  to  her  way  of 
thinking  this  did  not  atone  for  her  spiritual 
back-sliding.  Her  charity  was  nothing.  She 
hoped  it  might  not  prove  a  snare  to  her.  "It 
is  one  of  those  things  that  give  my  nature  pleas- 
ure ;  therefore  I  believe  I  am  no  further  praise- 
worthy than  that  I  give  way  to  a  natural  in- 
clination. ' ' 

Still,  even  a  woman  with  such  unworldly 
ideals  could  little  by  little  become  reconciled  to 
a  housewife's  lot.  Religion,  she  had  always 
held,  should  not  unfit  one  for  the  duties  of 
this  life,  but  "stimulate  and  capacitate "  her 
to  perform  those  duties  properly.  And  now  she 
could,  though  perhaps  at  rare  moments,  believe 
that  "doing  our  duty  is  most  effectually  serv- 
ing the  Lord" ;  that  a  careworn  wife  and  mother 
may  serve  as  nobly  as  a  soldier  in  the  Church 
Militant;  and  that  one  should  rejoice  in  being 
something,  or  nothing,  as  He  may  see  best  for 
us.  It  was  from  this  valley  of  content  that  she 
was  to  be  led  out,  after  eight  years,  into  the 
land  of  her  ideal. 

Mrs.  Fry's  father  fell  ill,  and  died  with  an 
avowal  of  Christian  trust  on  his  lips.  On  en- 
tering the  room,  soon  after,  she  had  an  expe- 
rience possible  only  for  those  who  are  upheld 
by  the  purest  faith.  Her  heart  "was  bowed 
within"  her,  in  love  not  only  for  the  deceased, 
but  also  for  the  living.  She  could  not  under- 
stand it.  But  the  power  given  to  her  was  won- 
derful, and  the  cross  none ;  her  heart  was  so  full 
that  she  could  scarcely  hinder  the  utterance  of 


ELIZABETH  FEY  11 

her  thanksgiving  and  praise.  The  feeling  con- 
tinued into  the  next  day.  And  at  the  grave, 
the  fear  of  man  being  removed,  she  fell  on  her 
knees  with  a  strange  outburst,  ' '  Great  and  mar- 
velous are  Thy  works,  Lord  God  Almighty! 
just  and  true  are  Thy  ways,  Thou  King  of 
Saints!  Be  pleased  to  receive  our  thanksgiv- 
ing. ' ' 

Days  and  nights  of  gloom  followed  this. 
What,  asked  the  timid  worshiper,  would  people 
think?  Yet  the  very  next  time  she  was  in  meet- 
ing a  similar  impulse  arose,  and  a  scriptural 
text  rested  on  her  mind  until  her  fright  was 
extreme,  and  it  appeared  that  duty  would  com- 
pel her  to  utter  it.  She  cried  out  to  be  excused 
for  that  time.  But  at  the  next  meeting  the 
words  recurred — and  courage  with  them — and 
she  " dared  again  to  open  her  mouth  in  public.' 

In  short,  it  seemed  very  much  as  if,  accord- 
ing to  Quaker  beliefs  and  precepts,  Elizabeth 
Fry  was  called  to  be  a  minister.  Her  family 
responsibilities  were  heavy  and  she  was  loath 
to  shirk  them;  her  preparation  for  public 
speaking  was  not  what  it  should  be ;  and  she  felt 
unworthy,  before  the  Lord,  of  such  a  sacred 
work.  "Yet  when  the  feeling  and  power  con- 
tinue, so  that  I  dare  not  omit  it,  then  what  can 
Ido!" 

She  could  do  nothing  but  submit.  She  went 
on  speaking,  therefore,  and,  her  power  increas- 
ing with  her  practice,  she  was  within  a  year 
acknowledged  a  minister  by  the  Society  of 
Friends.  This  act  entitled  her  to  appoint  spe- 


12    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

cial  meetings  and,  with  the  consent  of  the  local 
society,  to  preach  the  gospel  abroad. 

This  ordination  was  conferred  in  1810.  For 
the  next  six  years  she  engaged  in  active  min- 
istry, in  England  and  Scotland,  and  met  every- 
where with  eminent  success.  Those  who  heard 
her  simple,  earnest  speeches  and  prayers  were 
struck  first  with  surprise,  then  with  awe,  and 
then  with  pious  fervor.  Particularly  was  she 
fitted  to  wait  at  the  bedsides  of  the  sick  and 
dying.  Though  it  was  sometimes  awful  "to  be 
looked  to  as  a  minister  from  whom  something 
is  expected,"  the  afflicted,  it  seems,  seldom 
looked  in  vain.  She  tells  of  one  occasion  where 
"we  had,  I  think,  a  most  glorious  time;  for  the 
power  of  the  Most  High  appeared  to  over- 
shadow us. '  And  her  dying  brother,  when  she 
prayed,  exclaimed,  "What  a  sweet  prayer!' 
and  afterward,  "What  a  beautiful  day  this  has 
been. ' '  Altogether  Elizabeth  Fry  had  been  dig- 
nified with  what  she  believed  was  the  highest 
calling,  that  of  a  truly  inspired  minister  for  the 
Friends.  Her  daily  and  hourly  prayer  was  that 
she  should  not  err  or  fail  in  any  particular  of 
that  calling. 

At  the  same  time,  two  forces  were  at  work 
that  would  in  a  measure  undo  her.  The  first 
was  that  unforced  tenderness  of  her  nature 
which  almost  daily  prompted  her  to  acts  of 
benevolence.  Finding  that  the  poor  children 
near  her  home  were  ignorant  and  shiftless,  she 
opened  a  school  for  them.  She  kept  a  depot  of 
calico,  flannels,  and  medicines  which  in  hard 


ELIZABETH  FRY  13 

weather  she  would  in  person  dispense  in  the 
most  squalid  homes.  She  had  soup  boiled  in  an 
outhouse  and  supplied  hundreds  with  nourish- 
ing meals.  She  never,  as  was  said,  took  any 
pride  in  these  deeds ;  they  were  natural  and  not 
religious.  But  all  the  same  they  consumed  her 
time.  She  could  no  more  resist  doing  them 
than  she  could  resist  speaking  in  meeting.  And, 
in  spite  of  the  "higher"  offices  that  went  be- 
side, she  esteemed  them  well  worth  her  effort. 

The  other  thing  that  disturbed  her  was  the 
conduct  of  her  children.  When  they  were 
young,  she  prayed  that  they  might  rather  die 
than  live  to  dishonor  the  Cause ;  and  at  that  age 
her  motherly  kindness  so  enveloped  them  that 
they  obeyed,  and  she  had  little  fear.  As  they 
grew  up,  however,  she  could  not  hold  them  so 
well  in  rein.  She  was  too  much  absent  from 
home,  and  when  at  home  she  was  too  indulgent 
of  their  whims.  Their  father,  who  did  not  ob- 
serve the  Quaker  formulas  strictly,  set  them  an 
example  in  waywardness.  Then,  many  of  their 
more  distant  relatives  adhered  to  the  Church  of 
England.  In  consequence  they  began  to  pull 
away  one  by  one  from  the  faith  of  their  mother. 
They  all  joined  other  denominations.  Eliza- 
beth Fry,  a  minister  for  the  Friends,  could  not 
but  doubt  they  were  being  ensnared  by  evil. 

These  two  minor  interests,  then,  interfered 
with  her  wholehearted  service  as  a  sectarian 
minister.  She  tried  to  set  them  aside,  or  to 
hold  them  in  the  background  of  her  thoughts. 
But  she  little  knew  how  strong  they  were. 


14    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGEESS 

They  would  take  a  larger  and  larger  place  as 
the  years  went  on,  and  would  turn  her  career 
into  unforeseen  ways.  And  the  change  would 
be  both  for  her  good  and  that  of  the  world. 

One  winter  day  in  1813  a  member  of  the  So- 
ciety of  Friends  came  to  ask  Mrs.  Fry  to  help 
allay  the  sufferings  of  the  prisoners  in  New- 
gate jail.  She  stacked  her  carriage  with  cloth- 
ing, intending  to  distribute  it  and  then  go  about 
her  business.  But  when  she  peeped  into  the 
jail,  she  saw  that  which  made  her  think  twice. 

The  great  room  was  one  horde  of  scrambling 
women  and  children.  Some  women  were  old 
and  some  were  girls,  some  vicious  looking  and 
hard,  and  some  innocent  and  frightened — and 
the  children,  they  surely  were  guiltless  of  any 
crime !  Everybody  was  in  rags — for  the  prison 
did  not  clothe  them — and  most  of  them  unclean. 
Some  were  cooking,  some  washing,  and  some, 
worn  out,  were  sleeping  amid  the  din  with  only 
a  raised  board  for  a  pillow.  Others  were  gam- 
ing; some  stretched  out  their  hands  to  the 
strangers  in  clamorous  begging;  and  a  good 
many — to  come  to  the  worst — were  drinking, 
and  quarreling  and  using,  as  one  said,  "the 
most  terrible  language. ' 

Elizabeth  Fry  gave  away  the  clothing  she 
had  brought  and  then  went  home.  But  she 
carried  in  her  mind  a  grewsome  picture :  a  pic- 
ture of  guilty  women  without  comfort  or  re- 
proof, of  innocent  women  herded  with  the  guilty 
and  forced  to  hear  their  talk,  of  children,  who 
had  never  so  much  as  thought  of  evil,  exposed 


ELIZABETH  FEY  15 

to  the  company  of  the  most  abandoned  crim- 
inals of  the  London  slums.  Elizabeth  Fry  as  a 
young  woman  had  thought  her  path  a  hard  one 
because  her  sisters  did  not  exactly  conform. 
But  they  had  almost  conformed;  and  their 
ideal  of  virtue  was  as  high  as  hers.  How, 
then,  must  she  have  sympathized  with  the  many 
here  who  would  do  right  if  they  could — but  who 
had  fallen  among  such  temptations? 

At  that  time  a  wrong-doer  was  looked  upon 
as  a  willful  enemy  of  society,  as  a  person  who 
from  wicked  motives  born  within  himself  loved 
to  infringe  the  rights  of  others.  The  proper 
way  to  reward  him  was  to  take  an  eye  for  an 
eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth.  Or  rather  you 
could  exact  more  than  equal  payment ;  for  since 
the  man  was  incurable  you  might  as  well  have 
his  life  and  be  done  with  it ;  and  if  he  was  poor 
you  could  send  him  to  the  gallows  for  stealing 
a  leg  of  lamb  as  readily  as  you  could  send  an- 
other man  for  homicide.  That  a  criminal  might 
possibly  be  reformed  was  unthought  of.  When 
a  person  sinned  let  society  take  vengeance. 
That  was  the  eighteenth  century  idea. 

In  tune  with  this  inhuman  theory  was  the 
prison  system  of  which  Elizabeth  Fry  had 
caught  a  glimpse.  People  were  not  merely  to 
be  detained  in  the  jail ;  they  were  to  be  punished 
there.  Hence  all  the  women  good  and  bad 
were  thrown  in  together,  with  absolutely  no 
employment  but  that  of  bickering  among  them- 
selves, suffering  as  they  might  till  the  day  ar- 
rived for  their  release  or  the  payment  of  a 


16    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

heavier  penalty.  The  children  of  a  poor 
mother  were  shut  up  with  her,  simply  because 
there  was  no  one  outside  to  harbor  them. 

Elizabeth  Fry  saw  that  something  was  wrong 
about  this.  Away  back  in  her  youth  she  had 
said,  "  No  thing  gives  me  so  much  pleasure  as 
instructing  the  lower  classes  of  people. "  She 
had  of  late,  in  pity,  taught  the  children  of  the 
poor  near  her  London  home.  But  here  were 
children  untaught  and  consorting  with  evil  be- 
sides. The  women  she  had  seen  die  in  want 
had  been  fortunate  compared  to  these  who 
lacked  every  material  comfort,  and  were  under 
moral  condemnation  as  well.  The  more  she 
thought  of  it  the  more  it  fretted  her.  In  brief, 
the  "natural  inclination"  to  benevolence  got 
the  better  of  the  Quaker  woman,  and  she  de- 
termined, if  it  could  be  done,  to  make  that 
prison  a  little  less  vile. 

One  day  she  appeared  at  Newgate  and  aske< 
to  be  left  alone  with  the  prisoners.  The  turn- 
key warned  her  to  put  her  valuables  in  his 
keeping,  but  she  declined.  She  went  in  with 
the  Bible  in  her  hand.  The  inmates  flocked 
around  her.  She  was  frightened  at  their 
violence,  but  began  in  her  calm,  even  tones  to 
read  the  parable  of  the  lord  of  the  vineyard. 
The  audience  became  attentive.  Many  of  them 
had  never  heard  Scripture  readings  before,  and 
some  asked  who  Christ  was!  "It  seemed  to 
be  glad  tidings  to  them,"  she  said.  And,  far 
from  being  robbed,  when  she  dropped  some 
article  a  woman  ran  after  her  to  restore  it. 


ELIZABETH  FRY  17 

Then  Mrs.  Fry  pointed  out  to  the  mothers 
the  "grievous  consequences  to  their  children 
of  living  in  such  a  scene  of  depravity/  She 
said  she  would  like  to  start  a  prison  school, 
and  the  mothers  wept  for  joy  at  the  idea. 
With  this  encouragement  she  called  upon  the 
authorities.  They  said  her  scheme  was  vision- 
ary and  would  fail.  However,  they  assigned 
an  unoccupied  cell  for  a  school  room.  The  pris- 
oners selected  a  governess  from  among  them- 
selves to  enforce  rules.  A  teacher  was  hired 
and  classes  formed  for  all  persons  under 
twenty-five  years  of  age.  And  on  the  opening 
day  the  eager  prisoners  struggled  with  such 
violence  for  the  front  seats  that  the  new 
teacher  said,  "I  felt  as  if  I  were  going  into  a 
den  of  wild  beasts,  and  well  recollect  shudder- 
ing when  the  door  was  closed  upon  me,  and  I 
was  locked  in  with  such  a  herd  of  novel  and 
desperate  companions." 

This  spirited,  if  noisy,  response  made  Mrs. 
Fry  sure  that  her  first  theory  was  correct. 
The  best  of  these  women  were  at  heart  not 
wicked  at  all,  and  the  worst  still  retained  a 
pretty  big  lump  of  the  leaven  of  righteousness. 
They  .all,  like  flowers  in  a  cellar,  would  grow 
strong  and  beautiful  if  brought  into  the  light. 

She  now  formed  an  association  of  twelve  to 
help  her.  She  induced  the  prison  guards  to 
clean  and  whitewash  a  large  room,  and  one  day 
summoned  all  the  prisoners  into  it.  She  re- 
minded them  of  the  wages  of  sin,  part  of  which 
they  were  now  paying;  and  praised,  in  con- 


18    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGEESS 

trast,  the  sweetness  and  peace  of  an  upright 
life.  Then  she  described  the  comforts  to  be 
derived  from  industry  and  sobriety,  and  said 
one  chief  reason  why  their  minds  ran  upon 
wicked  thoughts  was  that  their  hands  were 
busied  in  no  useful  work.  Finally  she  carried 
in  a  quantity  of  cloth  and  yarn  and  scissors, 
and  a  supply  of  needles  and  thread.  Here, 
now,  she  said — if  they  would,  they  could  knit 
and  sew  and  make  garments  and  earn  honest 
money!  Would  they? 

Would  they !  The  women  were  eager  for  the 
opportunity.  But  Mrs.  Fry  restrained  them. 
They  must  have  some  rules  to  go  by.  They 
must  all  work,  every  one.  Would  they! 
Every  hand  went  up.  They  must  stop  begging, 
gaming,  using  bad  words.  The  hands  ap- 
proved. They  must  choose  monitors  to  su- 
perintend them,  and  must  obey  the  monitors. 
In  short,  they  must  not  look  to  Elizabeth  Fry 
or  their  jailers  for  reproof  or  reward;  they 
must  govern  themselves.  They  would!  Well, 
then,  here  was  their  chance.  And  the  women 
set  to  work. 

The  effect  was  hardly  credible.  Mrs.  Fry 
wrote  in  her  journal  in  1818,  "A  remarkable 
blessing  still  appears  to  accompany  my  prison 
concerns — perhaps  the  greatest  apparent  bless- 
ing on  my  deeds  that  ever  attended  me.  How 
have  the  spirits  both  of  those  in  power  and  the 
poor  afflicted  prisoners  appeared  to  be  sub- 
jected, and  how  has  the  work  gone  on!' 

Those  of  the  convicts  who  were  to  be  trans- 


ELIZABETH  FEY  19 

ported  had  formerly  made  a  disagreeable 
scene  before  they  left,  breaking  and  burning 
everything  they  could  reach ;  now  they  thanked 
their  benefactors  and  withdrew  so  quietly  that 
the  usual  guard  was  reduced  by  half.  Those 
who  stayed  behind  wished  unselfishly  to  give 
their  savings  to  the  friends  that  had  to  go. 

Once  Mrs.  Fry  was  informed  that  some  of 
the  women  were  still  gaming.  She  went  into 
the  prison  and  told  them  what  she  had  heard. 
She  dwelt  upon  the  evil  effects  of  this  habit, 
and  said  she  "  would  consider  it  a  proof  of 
their  regard  if  they  would  have  the  candor  and 
kindness  to  bring  the  cards  to  her."  Soon 
after  she  retired,  a  trembling  girl  knocked  at 
her  room,  and  with  tears  of  penitence  gave  up 
a  pack  of  cards.  Another  woman  came,  and 
another — five  women  in  all.  Mrs.  Fry  de- 
stroyed the  cards  in  their  presence.  A  few 
days  later  she  gave  the  first  penitent  a  hand- 
kerchief as  a  token  of  good  will.  But  the  girl 
was  disappointed.  She  would  have  preferred 
a  Bible  with  Elizabeth  Fry's  name  written  in 
it,  which  she  would  value  above  everything 
else! 

Twice  a  day,  before  the  prisoners  settled 
down  to  their  work  or  study,  Mrs.  Fry  read  to 
them  from  the  Bible,  expounded  what  she  read, 
and  prayed.  But  she  did  not  put  forward  the 
claims  of  her  own  sect.  "It  would  be  highly 
indecorous,'  she  said,  "to  press  any  peculiar 
doctrines  of  any  kind, — anything  beyond  the 
fundamental  doctrines  of  Scripture."  Nor, 


20    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

inspired  religionist  that  she  was,  did  she  be- 
lieve her  rites  alone  could  effect  a  reformation. 
"We  may  instruct  as  we  will,"  she  said,  "but 
if  we  allow  them  their  time,  and  they  have 
nothing  to  do,  they  naturally  must  return  to 
their  evil  passions." 

On  this  basis  her  fame  began  to  spread. 
Upon  request,  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  the 
sheriffs  and  aldermen  came  to  inspect  the 
transformed  prison.  They  hardly  recognized 
it — and  they  adopted  Mrs.  Fry's  whole  plan 
as  a  part  of  the  system  of  Newgate.  After 
this  the  place  became  one  of  the  curiosi- 
ties of  London.  Letters  poured  in  from  all 
parts  of  the  kingdom:  ladies  wished  to  imitate 
what  Mrs.  Fry  had  done;  magistrates  wished 
to  better  the  prisons  under  their  control. 
When  Mrs.  Fry  went  on  a  preaching  tour, 
nothing  would  do  but  she  must  see  all  the  jails 
along  the  way  and  suggest  improvements. 
The  English  parliament  commended  her  work. 
The  Princess  Royal  of  Denmark  breakfasted 
with  Mrs.  Fry,  and  questioned  her  about  what 
she  had  done.  A  reformer  from  Russia,  after 
seeing  Newgate,  went  home  with  the  new  idea 
to  advertise  it  in  St.  Petersburg. 

In  a  word,  Elizabeth  Fry,  scarcely  a  year 
after  the  beginning  of  her  prison  labors,  found 
herself  among  the  most  famous  and  most 
sought-after  women  in  all  Europe.  She  ha 
been  and  was  still  an  eloquent  preacher  of  the 
gospel.  She  professed  no  other  calling.  But 
her  fame  came  not  that  way.  It  came  throng 


ELIZABETH  FEY  21 

practical  benevolence,  her  "natural  inclination,' 
in  which  she  saw  no  special  merit.  That  trait 
had  led  her  to  unfold  a  new  and  splendid  idea 
that  the  world  had  been  waiting  for.  That 
idea,  in  her  own  words,  was  this.  "Not  only 
that  many  will  be  stopped  in  their  career  of 
vice,  but  some  truly  turned  from  their  evil 
ways  by  our  prisons  which  have  been  too  gen- 
erally the  nurseries  of  vice,  being  so  arranged 
that  they  may  become  schools  where  the  most 
reprobate  may  be  instructed  in  their  duty 
towards  their  Creator  and  their  fellow  mortals, 
and  where  the  very  habits  of  their  lives  may  be 
changed. ' ' 

In  all  these  public  endeavors  Mrs.  Fry 
mingled  with  many  people  not  of  her  own  class 
or  her  own  faith.  Large  crowds  met  at  her 
house,  "noblemen,  ladies,  clergy,  dissenters, 
Friends."  With  all  their  diversity,  they  man- 
aged to  get  on  peaceably  both  in  practical  af- 
fairs and  in  worship,  ' '  our  dear  Lord  and  Mas- 
ter Himself  appearing  remarkably  to  own  us 
together. ' ' 

She  was  not  yet  willing,  however,  to  admit 
this  liberality  as  a  principle  in  the  bringing 
up  of  her  family.  For  herself,  she  was  very 
thoroughly  a  Quaker.  As  a  Quaker  she  had 
worked  and  worshiped;  and  since  the  faith 
had  been  so  signally  blessed  in  her,  she  could 
not  help  feeling  that  any  deviation  from  that 
faith  was,  after  all,  a  little  bit  wrong.  But  her 
husband  had  for  a  long  time  showed  signs  of 
discontent,  and  her  children,  as  they  grew 


22    HEEOINES  OF  MODEKN  PKOGRESS 

older,  generally  inclined  away  from  the  pe- 
culiar views  and  customs  so  dear  to  her.  This 
was  a  deep  trial  for  Mrs.  Fry:  that  she, 
through  whom  the  Power  had  spoken  to  thou- 
sands of  strangers,  should  let  her  own  family 
lose  themselves  in  error.  It  caused  her  to  be 
criticised  severely  in  meeting.  It  raised  douhts 
as  to  whether  the  children  loved  and  respected 
her  as  they  ought,  and  whether,  in  fact,  their 
religion  had  a  true  foundation.  "Oh,?  ex- 
claims she  once  in  her  journal,  "may  I  ever 
have  the  encouragement  of  seeing  those  nearest 
to  me  walking  closely  with  God;  not  doing 
their  own  pleasure,  nor  walking  in  their  own 
ways,  but  doing  His  pleasure  and  walking  in 
His  ways." 

The  crisis  finally  came  in  1833.  Her  daugh- 
ter Eachel  wedded  a  man  of  another  sect. 
Mrs.  Fry,  in  obedience  to  the  rules  of  the  So- 
ciety— and  also  to  her  own  conscience — de- 
clined to  witness  the  ceremony.  A  son  also 
married  out  of  the  sect,  and  Mrs.  Fry  writes, 
1  i  Here  I  am,  sitting  in  solitude,  keeping  silence 
before  the  Lord ;  on  the  wedding  day  of  my  be- 
loved son  William. "  Then  these  children,  and 
others  soon  to  follow,  were  one  by  one  brought 
up  before  the  meeting  and  formally  cast  out 
of  the  Society.  What  humiliation  could  be 
greater  for  the  most  famous  member  of  that 
Society! 

To  this  trial  was  added  for  a  time  that  of 
poverty.  Her  husband 's  business  failed.  She 
was  obliged  to  neglect  her  prisoners,  to  omit 


ELIZABETH  FEY  23 

inviting  friends  into  her  home  for  worship,  to 
part  with  servants,  and  to  abandon  the  schools 
and  the  poor.  On  top  of  all  she  had  to  take 
refuge  with  some  of  her  dissenting  children 
and  to  accept  aid  from  others.  It  cannot  be 
asserted  that  their  care  and  sympathy  in  these 
tribulations  brought  her  closer  to  them;  but 
certain  it  is  that  before  long  she  became  more 
kindly  toward  them  and  more  tolerant  of  their 
views. 

One  day,  when  she  had  resumed  some  of  her 
outside  work,  she  was  present  at  a  death  bed 
in  a  Eoman  Catholic  home.  Here  her  mouth 
"was  remarkably  opened  in  prayer  and 
praises,"  little  otherwise  than  at  her  father's 
grave  years  before.  " Indeed, "  she  says,  "all 
day  at  their  house  something  of  a  holy  influence 
appeared  to  be  over  us.'  And  she  concludes, 
"It  surely  matters  not  by  what  name  we  call 
ourselves,  or  what  outward  means  we  may 
think  right  to  use,  if  our  hearts  are  but  in- 
fluenced by  the  love  of  Christ.  With  cere- 
monies or  without  ceremonies,  if  there  be  but 
an  establishment  upon  the  Kock  of  Ages,  all 
will  be  well." 

After  this,  her  relations  with  people  of 
variant  sects  grew  every  day  more  genial. 
Wherever  she  went  preaching  she  was  loaded 
with  kindness,  and  returned  it.  "I  felt  how 
sweet  it  is  to  be  on  good  terms  with  them  all — 
one  day  drinking  tea  at  the  parsonage,  abound- 
ing with  plate,  elegancies  and  luxuries,  the 
next  day  at  a  humble  Methodist  shoemaker's, 


24    HEBOINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

they  having  procured  a  little  fresh  butter,  that 
I  might  take  tea  under  their  roof.  The  con- 
trast was  great,  but  I  can  indeed  see  the  same 
kind  Lord  over  all." 

This  tendency  to  religious  union  soon  came 
to  a  head.  The  same  kind  Lord  was  over  all. 
He  was  over  her  children  who  had  left  the  So- 
ciety, and  over  those  who  still,  against  her  will, 
desired  to  leave.  Then,  was  it  not  a  mistake, 
after  all,  to  put  religious  restraint  upon  one's 
children  ?  Should  not  sober-minded  young  per- 
sons judge  for  themselves?  As  respects  the 
peculiar  scruples  of  the  Friends,  were  they  not 
perhaps  a  stumbling  block  when  adopted  just 
to  please  others,  and  not  from  principle? 

And  if  it  was  right  to  choose  one's  religion, 
could  it  be  terribly  wrong  to  choose  one's  wife 
or  husband — even  though  their  religion  dif- 
fered from  that  of  one's  mother? 

Another  child  fell  in  love,  married,  and  was 
ejected  from  the  Friends'  communion.  Mrs. 
Fry  felt  the  humiliation  deeply.  And,  through 
her  love  for  her  children,  she  felt  at  last  a 
grave  injustice.  It  was  highly  desirable,  she 
thought,  to  settle  with  one  of  the  same  re- 
ligious views  and  education.  But  a  parent 
ought  not  to  influence  a  child  unduly,  providing 
love,  "the  essential  ingredient,'  were  present. 
And  she  concluded  boldy,  "I  disapprove  the 
rule  of  our  Society  that  disowns  persons  for 
allowing  a  child  to  marry  one  not  a  Friend — 
it  is  a  most  undue  and  un-Christian  restraint,  as 
far  as  I  can  judge  it." 


ELIZABETH  FEY  25 

This  train  of  thought  reached  its  climax  in 
1837  in  a  letter  to  all  her  children.  While  the 
larger  number  of  them  no  longer  ' l  walked  with 
her/7  she  believed  they  were  still  "united  in 
their  Holy  Head.'  Their  points  of  union  were 
strong;  they  were  members  of  one  living 
Church.  She  proposed  that  they  all  meet  to- 
gether once  a  month,  at  each  house  in  rotation, 
to  read  Scripture,  and  talk  of  anything  "that 
is  doing  for  the  good  of  mankind  in  the  world 
generally. ' ' 

The  plan  .was  tried,  and  it  answered  well. 
Elizabeth  Fry's  head  had  again  been  compelled 
to  make  terms  with  her  heart.  Through  sheer 
love  she  had  proved  religious  communion  as 
well  as  benevolent  work  to  be  possible  far 
above  the  narrow  restrictions  of  creeds.  And 
she  had  made  a  model  in  little  for  the  religious 
history  of  the  century  to  follow. 

The  last  years  of  Mrs.  Fry's  life  (she  died  in 
1845)  were  given  to  the  extension  of  her  phil- 
anthropic and  religious  ideas.  She  saw  the 
need  of  a  home  for  discharged  prisoners,  where 
they  could  continue  their  training,  and  she  pre- 
vailed upon  a  rich  woman  to  build  the  home. 
Then  her  attention  was  claimed  by  the  neg- 
lected little  girls,  some  of  whom  had  been  in 
prison  and  some  of  whom  in  their  slum  homes 
had  no  chance  of  betterment.  At  her  suggestion, 
a  school  of  discipline  was  founded  for  these 
where,  with  good  associates,  they  might  be 
trained  in  orderly  habits.  She  urged  more 
careful  trial  of  culprits,  and  a  less  frequent 


26    HEKOINES  OF  MODEKN  PEOGEESS 

use  of  capital  punishment;  less  abuse  of  soli- 
tary confinement,  where  the  idle  fancy  would 
be  likely  to  corrupt  itself  worse  and  worse ;  more 
kindness  to  the  insane,  who  were  certainly  to 
be  pitied,  and  not  punished.  In  her  lifetime — 
within  thirty  years  from  the  beginning  at  New- 
gate— she  saw  most  of  these  changes  carried 
out  in  England  and  Scotland.  And  when,  with 
permission  of  the  Friends,  she  five  times  toured 
the  continent,  the  reforms  were  taken  up  with 
vigor  there  also. 

While  the  philanthropic  work  overshadowed 
the  religious,  the  latter  did  not  cease  by  any 
means.  Mrs.  Fry  selected  passages  of  Scrip- 
ture for  all  the  days  of  the  year,  and  published 
them  as  a  text  book.  Thereafter,  she  gave 
them  away,  thousands  of  copies,  alike  to  kings 
and  beggars.  It  was  her  practice  to  invite  the 
servants  and  guests  of  the  inn  where  she  stayed 
to  an  evening  service,  and  to  speak  a  word  or 
give  a  tract  to  all  she  had  dealings  with  upon 
the  way.  Once  in  France,  so  her  daughter 
says,  those  to  whom  she  had  given  text  books 
on  her  previous  visit,  "begged  for  more,  and 
came  creeping  up  to  her  apartments  to  prefer 
their  request.  They  beguiled  her  into  the 
kitchen  where  she  told  them  in  broken  French 
a  little  of  her  wishes  for  them  as  to  faith  and 
practice.  Then  all  would  shake  hands  with 
her.'  And  in  the  meetings  of  the  Friends  she 
was  still  enabled  to  declare  gospel  truths 
boldly.  "  This  to  me  is  wonderful;  and  un- 
believers may  say  what  they  will,  it  must  be 


ELIZABETH  FEY 

the  Lord's  doing,  and  it  is  marvelous  in  our 
eyes — how  He  strengtheneth  them  that  have  no 
might,  and  helpeth  them  that  have  no  power.' 

Even  more  worthy  of  her  later  growth  was 
the  stand  she  took  on  religious  toleration. 
What  she  had  done  in  her  own  family  she 
would  have  the  world  do.  Particularly  in  Ger- 
many, where  the  Lutherans  were  oppressed  in 
various  ways,  she  addressed  a  remonstrance 
to  the  ruler,  of  which  he  said  the  "  Spirit  of 
God  must  have  helped  them  to  express  them- 
selves as  they  had  done." 

The  idea  of  crime  and  punishment  and  the 
idea  of  sectarianism  are  both  different  now 
from  what  they  were  when  Elizabeth  Fry 
looked  first  into  Newgate  jail. 

Crime  is  now  considered  an  object  of  pity 
rather  than  of  blame.  A  man  does  wrong  not 
because  he  prefers  wrong-doing,  but  because 
it  is  easiest,  and  because  he  does  not  know  how, 
or  lacks  the  opportunity,  to  do  right.  The  re- 
proach should  rest  on  the  society  which  for- 
sook him  in  his  ignorance  and  denied  him  op- 
portunity. And,  though  he  has  sinned  once, 
he  need  not  keep  on  sinning  nor  need  he  be 
hanged  as  a  preventive.  Society  can  atone  for 
its  former  neglect.  It  can  teach  him.  It  can 
give  him  opportunity.  It  can  heal  him  as  it 
heals  the  sick. 

So  our  institutions  for  wrong-doers  are  now 
designed  as  moral  hospitals.  In  our  prisons, 
our  reformatories,  our  reform  schools,  our  in- 
dustrial schools — in  all,  people  are  forcibly  de- 


28    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

tained,  it  is  true,  but  detained  only  that  they 
may  be  taught.  This  modern  system  of  pen- 
ology was  begun  by,  and  owes  much  of  its 
growth  to,  Elizabeth  Fry. 

Twentieth  century  churches,  too,  have  gen- 
erally given  up  persecution.  They  cooperate 
widely  in  their  practical  work.  They  often 
unite  for  worship — whole  congregations — as 
did  the  members  of  Elizabeth  Fry's  large 
family.  The  Quaker  woman,  it  is  true,  did 
not  stand  out  so  prominently  as  the  leader  of 
this  change.  But  both  in  her  acts  and  her 
ideas  she  attained  a  breadth  and  charity  that 
few  have  excelled. 

The  springs  of  her  influence  are  not  far  to 
seek.  They  are  found  in  her  extraordinary 
human  kindness.  Without  that  she  might  have 
been  a  Quaker  minister,  inspired  and  eloquent 
as  she  was;  but  she  could  never  have  been  a 
prison  reformer,  and  a  friend  of  religious 
toleration. 

Yet  such  was  her  modesty  that  when  this 
"natural  inclination  *  began  to  yield  great 
results  she  gradually  came  to  recognize  it 
no  less  than  the  power  to  preach,  as  a  gift 
from  her  Creator.  "In  nothing,'  she  said, 
"has  the  work  of  grace  been  so  marvelous  to 
me  as  in  the  ministry.  It  surely  is  not  my 
work ;  I  know  enough  of  myself  to  believe  it  to 
be  quite  impossible."  But  she  could  say,  with 
almost  equal  devoutness,  "To  myself  it  is 
really  wonderful  what  has  been  accomplished 
in  the  prisons  during  the  past  few  years. 


ELIZABETH  FEY  29 

What  a  cause  for  deep  thanksgiving  and  still 
deeper  humiliation  to  have  been  one  of  the  in- 
struments made  use  of  to  bring  about  these 
results. ' ' 

So,  though  she  had  broadened  beyond  the 
comprehension  of  most  people  of  her  time,  she 
included  her  whole  experience  under  the  name 
of  religion,  and  ended  her  public  career  as  she 
began  it,  with  a  profession  of  faith.  "  Since 
my  heart  was  touched  at  seventeen  years  old, 
I  believe  I  never  have  awakened  from  sleep,  in 
sickness  or  in  health,  by  day  or  by  night,  with- 
out my  first  waking  thought  being  how  best  I 
might  serve  my  Lord." 


MAEY  LYON 

WHEN  Mary  Lyon  was  a  very  small  child, 
she  one  day  climbed  upon  a  chair,  and 
stood  with  an  air  of  great  wisdom  scrutinizing 
the  hour  glass.  Her  mother  asked  what  she 
was  about.  She  replied  that  she  had  found  a 
way  to  make  more  time. 

She  probably  aimed  to  obstruct  the  flow  of 
the  sand.  The  girl's  elders  told  her  that  that 
would  not  delay  the  setting  of  the  sun  nor 
lengthen  out  the  hours  of  the  daylight.  But 
the  principle  involved, — the  principle  that, 
given  a  good  thing  one  had  as  well  multiply  it, 
they  made  her  grasp  and  hold. 

Mary  Lyon  was  born  February  28,  1797,  in 
Buckland,  Massachusetts.  Magnificent  hill 
scenery  was  hers  to  revel  in,  and  the  expan- 
sive freedom  of  a  community  not  yet  grown 
old.  These  had  a  side,  however,  that  was 
rough  and  sinister.  The  hills,  so  lovely  in  a 
distant  sunset,  were  seen  at  closer  view  to  be 
rugged,  bleak  and  unfertile;  a  family  which, 
like  the  Lyon,  made  shift  to  farm  them  for  a 
living,  would  certainly  have  to  forego  their 
ease.  The;  country  freedom  in  such  a  place 
had  much  to  do  if  it  would  offset  the  isolation, 
the  poverty,  and  the  lack  of  books,  schools,  and 
other  properties  that  were  so  agreeable  in  the 
older  settlements. 

so 


MARY  LYON 


MAEY  LYON  31 

This  rough  side  of  life  presented  itself  from 
the  first  to  Mary  Lyon.  She  was  the  fifth  of 
seven  children.  Her  father  died  when  she  was 
six  years  old,  and  the  burden  fell  upon  the 
mother  of  wresting  from  a  rocky  hillside  food 
and  clothing  for  six  girls  and  one  boy.  The 
family  was  undeniably  poor.  There  was  sel- 
dom any  surplus  of  maple  sugar  or  of  apples  in 
•  the  winter  store,  and  never  any  money  in  the 
purse  for  extravagant  pleasures;  and  "the 
rare  gift  of  the  Sunday  suit,  kept  expressly  for 
the  occasion,  formed  an  important  era  in  the 
life  of  the  possessor.'  But  in  spite  of  their 
poverty,  they  were  not  unhappy.  The  younger 
children  scarcely  knew  anything  was  lacking 
for  complete  comfort,  for  the  mother,  who 
ruled  the  home,  was  a  genius  at  making  the 
most  of  small  things. 

"In  that  little  domain, "  wrote  Mary  Lyon 
long  afterward,  in  a  tribute  to  her  mother, 
' '  nothing  was  left  to  take  its  own  way.  Every- 
thing was  made  to  yield  to  her  faithful  and 
diligent  hand.  It  was  no  mistake  of  that  good- 
hearted  neighbor  who  came  in  one  day  begging 
the  privilege  of  setting  a  plant  of  rare  virtues 
in  a  corner  of  her  garden,  because,  as  he  said, 
there  it  could  never  die.  ...  I  can  now  re- 
member just  the  appearance  of  that  woman  who 
had  a  numerous  household  to  clothe,  as  she 
said  one  day,  'How  is  it  that  the  widow  can 
do  no  more  for  me  than  anyone  else  f ' 

It  is  natural  that  the  children  of  such  a 
mother  should  early  learn  to  work  and  look  out 


32    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

for  themselves.  Mary,  it  is  said,  never  had 
time  to  play  save  for  an  incidental  outburst  of 
song  or  a  dash  of  her  light  feet  on  the  way  to 
school  or  to  the  berry  pastures.  She  was  too 
much  occupied  with  housekeeping  and  garden- 
ing and  nursing, — arts  that  she  learned  thor- 
oughly. On  winter  evenings  she  carded  and 
spun  into  thread  the  raw  wool  from  Buckland 
sheep,  wove  the  thread  into  cloth,  and  of  the 
cloth  fashioned  sheets,  counterpanes,  and  the 
clothing  she  herself  was  to  wear.  Yet  the 
steady  round  of  serious  toil  was  not  oppressive. 
Mary  seems  to  have  had  an  uncommon  dower 
of  high  spirits  and  humor.  She  would  find 
even  in  the  most  irksome  duties  a  large  ele- 
ment of  fun. 

Because  of  a  thrifty  mother  who  exercise< 
her  also  in  thrift,  Mary  Lyon  had  a  plenty  of 
material  comforts.  Beyond  mere  food  and 
clothes,  however,  this  reign  of  plenty  did  not 
extend.  Buckland,  or  in  fact  any  town  or  city 
in  the  world  where  the  girl  might  have  lived, 
held  out  to  her  only  the  slenderest  chance  for 
culture  of  the  mind.  This  circumstance  she 
would  have  to  meet  herself.  Fortunately  the 
habits  of  economy  and  self-help  were  grounded 
deep  in  her  nature,  and  she  went  about  getting 
her  education  with  the  same  cheerfulness  and 
practical  good  sense  with  which  she  had  potted 
her  own  peas  and  woven  her  own  garments  on 
the  hillside  farm. 

When   scarcely   six  years   old,   Mary   Lyon 
walked  a  mile  to  her  first  school  and  two  miles 


MARY  LYON  33 

to  her  second.  After  that  she  took  a  term 
now  in  Buckland,  now  in  Ashfield,  following 
the  teachers  of  best  repute,  and  earning  her 
keep,  wherever  she  stayed,  by  housework.  She 
had  an  eager  thirst  for  knowledge,  and  a  strong 
faculty  for  drinking  it  up, — sometimes  with 
little  heed  to  its  kind  or  quality.  Once  she 
memorized,  in  four  days,  the  whole  of  Alex- 
ander's English  Grammar,  and  her  progress 
in  other  studies  was  little  less  fleet.  One  of 
her  teachers  exclaimed,  "I  should  like  to  see 
what  she  would  make  if  she  could  be  sent  to 
college ! ' ' 

But  college,  at  that  day,  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion for  girls  like  Mary  Lyon.  The  standard 
of  education  for  women  was  modest,  not  to  say 
low.  Her  proper  occupation  was  home-build- 
ing; and  for  that,  mental  training  was  thought 
not  only  unnecessary  but  harmful.  "When 
girls  become  scholars,  who  is  to  make  puddings 
and  pies  f ' '  was  the  favorite  query  which  no  one 
could  answer.  A  woman  might  aspire  to  the 
best  society  without  the  preliminary  trouble  of 
learning  to  write  her  name. 

Of  late,  to  be  sure,  a  slight  change  had  come 
to  pass.  With  the  establishment  of  district 
schools,  women  were  often  hired  as  teachers, 
because  the  paltry  salaries  would  not  attract 
men.  To  equip  women  for  this  ill-paid  but 
necessary  service,  numerous  private  academies 
— owned  and  run  on  a  commercial  basis — had 
sprung  up  in  New  England.  A  girl  of  suf- 
ficient means  might  commence  in  one  of  these 


34    HEKOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

at  an  early  age,  and  linger  on  as  long  as  she 
chose.  Buckland,  however,  boasted  no  acad- 
emy. Mary  Lyon  could  not  meet  the  expense 
of  schooling  away  from  home.  Still  hungry 
for  the  knowledge  she  had  barely  glimpsed,  she 
was  forced  out  of  school  at  the  age  of  thirteen, 
and  set  to  earn  her  living. 

She  kept  house  for  her  brother  until  he  mar- 
ried, receiving  for  her  pains  a  dollar  a  week. 
Besides  this  she  derived  a  scanty  income  from 
spinning  and  weaving  for  the  neighbors. 
.Finally  she  began  to  teach,  at  seventy-five  cents 
a  week,  and  board.  But  "her  mirthful  ten- 
dencies threatened  her  success  as  a  teacher "; 
she  failed  in  discipline,  and  declared  she  was 
done  with  the  profession.  In  the  meantime  her 
own  craving  for  knowledge  still  persisted,  but 
only  at  irregular  intervals,  when  a  promising 
new  teacher  strayed  into  the  neighborhood, 
could  she  seize  a  few  weeks  at  school.  Her 
education  had  to  go  on  in  this  intermittent 
fashion  until  her  twentieth  year. 

Then  in  1817  the  Sanderson  Academy  was 
founded  at  Ashfield,  and  Mary  Lyon,  impatient 
from  all  her  years  of  waiting,  bore  down  upon 
it  with  tremendous  purpose.  She  paid  for  her 
board  with  two  coverlets  spun,  woven  and  dyed 
by  herself.  At  first  she  excited  the  contempt 
of  better  bred  students  by  the  blue  homespun 
gown  she  wore,  and  by  "impossible"  crudities 
of  speech  and  manner.  But  she  was  not  long 
a  laughing  stock.  She  consumed  a  Latin  gram- 
mar over  Sunday,  and  recited  the  whole  on 


MAKY  LYON  35 

Monday.  She  was  at  her  books,  if  report  be 
true,  on  an  average  of  twenty  hours  a  day. 
A  girl  whom  she  asked  to  share  her  seat  ad- 
mits, "I  did,  and  pursued  the  same  branches 
as  far  as  I  could  keep  up."  "She  is  all  intel- 
lect," people  said,  "she  does  not  know  that  she 
has  a  body  to  care  for.' 

Yet  she  evidently  had  other  gifts  besides  the 
intellectual,  for  her  fellow  students  liked  as 
well  as  admired  her.  "I  loved  her  from  my 
first  acquaintance,"  said  Amanda  White,  the 
Squire's  daughter,  "and  felt  that  her  heart 
was  made  for  friendship.  .  .  .  Her  frank, 
open  countenance  invited  confidence,  and  a 
mutual  feeling  of  interest  was  at  once  awak- 
ened." Her  charm  must  have  risen,  in  part 
from  the  fact  that  "she  was  ever  ready  to  lay 
aside  her  books  and  lend  a  helping  hand  to 
those  of  weaker  intellect."  Then,  too,  when  it 
came  to  manual  labor,  she  was  no  laggard. 
She  could  clean  a  school  room  with  as  much 
despatch  as  she  could  solve  a  problem  in 
mathematics,  a  happy  offset  to  her  mental  su- 
premacy. 

This  faculty  for  friendship  stood  her  in  good 
stead.  For  through  Amanda  she  captured 
Squire  White's  interest,  and  the  Squire  pre- 
vailed on  the  trustees  to  vote  her  free  tuition. 
She  was  invited  also  to  make  her  home  at  the 
Squire's  house. 

At  first  she  was  awkward  and  ill  at  ease,  and, 
what  was  worse,  due  to  her  absorption  with 
books,  she  had  fits  of  absent-mindedness.  Said 


36   HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGBESS 

Amanda,  "She  was  very  likely  to  leave  off 
some  article  or  put  on  one  wrong  side  out. 
She  was  one  of  those  unfortunate  ones  whose 
wearing  apparel  seemed  doomed  to  receive  the 
contents  of  every  overturned  inkstand  or 
lamp."  But  in  the  Squire's  household,  the 
young  woman  happily  became  conscious  of  her 
lapses.  Though  she  would  never  be  free  from 
defects  of  style  and  manner,  she  did,  to  use  her 
own  words,  correct  "  more  such  things  than 
anybody  ought  to  have. ' 

Too  soon,  however,  Mary  Lyon's  small  sav- 
ings gave  out,  and  she  had  again  to  retreat  to 
the  ranks  of  the  earners.  During  the  next  few 
years  she  would  teach  a  term  and  then,  with 
her  small  store  of  money,  doggedly  turn  back 
for  a  season  at  the  academy.  She  once  at- 
tended a  school  of  penmanship,  and  once 
strained  her  purse  for  a  term  at  Amherst 
Academy,  where  "her  homespun  apparel,  her 
extraordinary  scholarship,  and  her  boundless 
kindness  were  about  equally  conspicuous." 
Finally,  in  the  summer  of  1821,  Squire  White 
urged  a  loan  upon  her  for  a  summer  with 
Amanda  at  the  distant  Byfield  Academy. 
There  she  gained  knowledge  by  handfuls,  as 
Amanda  said,  and  was  much  too  busy  to  write 
letters,  or  even  to  eat  when  she  went  to  the 
table. 

The  same  autumn  she  was  offered  the  posi- 
tion of  assistant  in  the  Sanderson  Academy. 
She  would  have  liked  several  years  more  of 
study,  but  so  good  a  chance  to  work  a  poor 


MARY  LYON  37 

girl  could  not  decline.  So,  still  unsatisfied  as 
she  was,  she  saw  the  years  of  her  preparation 
come  abruptly  to  an  end. 

Mary  Lyon  had  spared  no  sacrifice  to  get 
her  education.  With  a  farm-bred  genius  for 
profiting  to  the  utmost  by  small  advantages, 
she  had  without  money  and  with  little  assist- 
ance climbed  far  above  the  average  woman  of 
her  day. 

And  yet,  when  she  bade  good-by  to  the 
school-room,  the  lore  of  her  books  was  the  least 
thing  that  stuck  in  her  mind.  Woman's  edu- 
cation, as  a  whole,  was  wrong;  that  was  her 
conclusion  from  twenty  odd  years  of  moiling 
and  toiling  after  it.  The  academies  were  gen- 
erally a  jungle  of  unrelated  courses,  with 
French,  music,  painting  and  manners  put  fore- 
most, so  that  while  women  graduates  might 
amuse  an  idle  half  hour  they  "  never  had  a 
dozejn  thoughts  in  all  their  lives,"  and  were 
incapable  of  any  useful  work.  She,  herself, 
with  her  vigorous  appetite  for  anything  that 
bore  the  name  of  learning,  had  nibbled  here 
and  there  with  no  one  to  direct  her,  and  had 
got  a  smattering  of  many  things,  but  fullness 
of  none. 

Education,  she  had  decided,  was  to  "fit  one 
to  do  good."  Should  she  not,  therefore,  use 
what  she  had  to  better  the  courses  of  study  for 
other  girls  who  should  come  after  her? 

Through  the  winter  of  1821  Miss  Lyon 
taught  in  Ashfield.  Buckland  soon  fitted  up 
a  primitive  academy — a  third  story  room,  with 


38    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

board  benches  along  the  side  walls,  heated  by 
four  fireplaces, — and  stole  her  away  from  the 
rival  town.  For  eight  years  she  wavered  back 
and  forth,  according  as  the  one  or  the  other 
would  enlarge  its  rooms  or  give  her  fuller  au- 
thority. Meantime,  Miss  Zilpah  Grant,  for- 
merly assistant  at  Byfield,  engaged  her  for  the 
summers  at  a  new  school  in  Derry,  New  Hamp- 
shire. All  the  tried  policies  of  the  older 
teacher  she  put  in  use  in  her  own  winter  schools 
at  home. 

She  must  by  this  time  have  subdued  her 
mirthful  tendencies,  for  her  teaching  was  a 
marked  success.  Girls  came  to  her  already 
from  beyond  the  State.  Those  intending  to 
teach  would  enter  her  classes,  if  only  for  a 
week,  to  learn  her  methods.  Her  students 
were  in  demand  as  teachers  long  before  gradu- 
ation and  no  other  certificate  than  her  approval 
was  required. 

In  1828,  Miss  Grant  moved  to  an  academy  in 
Ipswich,  Massachusetts.  Miss  Lyon  yielded 
to  persuasion  and  became  her  assistant. 
Within  four  years  this  seminary  had  a  na- 
tional reputation.  It  sent  out  teachers  to  all 
parts  of  the  Union,  and  drew  its  pupils  from 
as  wide  an  area.  "And,"  said  Miss  Lyon, 
"it  has  often  numbered  among  its  pupils  those 
who  have  been  employed  as  teachers  in  schools 
of  almost  every  grade,  those  who  had,  as  they 
supposed,  completed  their  education  years  be- 
fore. " 

The    surprising    growth    of    these    various 


MAEY  LYON  39 

schools  was  built  on  the  new  ideals  and 
methods  of  Miss  Lyon  and  her  friends.  Ips- 
wich, unlike  other  seminaries,  admitted  none 
but  girls  over  fourteen,  and  it  named  certain 
entrance  requirements.  Having  selected  these 
more  mature  pupils,  it  introduced  them  to  a 
course  of  study  truly  novel  in  those  days. 
"Away  with  French  and  music  and  painting 
from  our  school,"  cried  Miss  Grant,  "until  its 
worth  is  so  much  diminished  that  it  must  be 
patched  and  puffed  up  with  these  appendages." 
Courses  of  English  studies  were  substituted. 
The  number  that  a  pupil  might  pursue  at  one 
time  was  limited,  and  since  promotion  was  by 
examination,  a  girl  never  found  herself  floun- 
dering unprepared  in  the  higher  classes.  "If 
you  want  to  have  a  polished  education,"  ran 
Miss  Lyon's  precept,  "have  a  good  foundation. 
You  would  find  it  hard  to  polish  a  piece  of 
sponge,  but  not  to  polish  steel." 

In  teaching,  even  the  best  method  is  futile 
without  a  personality  behind  it.  Miss  Lyon 
breathed  life  into  the  method.  The  young 
woman  had  her  periods  of  despondency,  it  is 
true;  she  once  complained  that  tea  was  ready 
too  early,  because  "I  was  wishing  to  have  a 
good  crying  spell,  and  you  could  not  give  me 
time  enough/'  But  these  fits  never  betrayed 
her  in  the  class  room.  There  with  her  "full, 
smiling,  happy  blue  eyes,  plump  rosy  cheeks, 
sandy  hair,  and  as  much  intellect  and  intelli- 
gence as  you  can  conceive,"  she  was  all  cheer- 
fulness and  vigor.  She  taught  well  because 


40    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

the  work  was  to  her  fine  and  noble.  "  Never 
teach  the  immortal  mind  for  money, ' '  she  said. 
"If  money-making  is  your  object,  be  milliners 
or  dressmakers,  but  teaching  is  a  sacred,  not  a 
mercenary  employment.' 

In  these  several  schools,  therefore,  Mary 
Lyon  forced  up  the  standard  of  scholarship  to 
where  she  thought  it  should  be,  so  that  a  girl 
attending  them  could  have  the  systematic  and 
thorough  instruction  she  had  missed  in  her 
own  youth.  But  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
she  was  contented  with  the  result.  On  the  con- 
trary, as  she  repaired  one  fault  of  the 
schools,  it  was  only  to  make  another  more 
prominent. 

In  the  first  place,  few  but  wealthy  girls  could 
attend  the  seminary.  Like  the  rest  of  its  kind, 
it  was  a  business  enterprise,  and  the  trustees 
frankly  expected  fat  dividends  from  their  in- 
vestment. As  a  result  a  girl's  expenses  for 
one  year  were  nearly  double  what  it  cost  a  man 
for  his  whole  college  course.  A  girl  of  mod- 
erate means  could  not  even  taste  of  the  higher 
education  unless  by  a  miracle.  Had  not  Miss 
Lyon  herself,  coming  up  from  the  ranks,  had 
to  fight  every  inch  of  the  way?  She  knew 
many  poor  girls  wanted  an  education;  and  she 
knew,  as  few  could,  the  hopelessness  of  their 
desire. 

The  personal  aspirations  of  the  girls  did  not 
constitute  the  whole  problem.  The  country 
was  in  sore  need  of  girls  with  a  seminary  train-' 
ing.  Over  a  million  children,  in  the  different 


MAEY  LYON  41 

states,  were  growing  up  illiterate.  Thirty 
thousand  seminary  graduates  should  be  seated 
at  once  in  as  many  teachers'  chairs,  and  ten 
thousand  more  should  be  made  ready  yearly 
for  the  vacancies. 

Again,  Miss  Lyon's  Ipswich  school,  half  per- 
fected as  it  was,  had  not  the  prospect  of  a 
long  life.  Her  presence  and  that  of  Miss 
Grant  made  it,  for  the  time,  a  plant  that 
yielded  profits  to  the  shareholders.  But  when 
they  were  gone  the  school  would,  like  its  many 
predecessors,  collapse  and  even  their  model  of 
scholarship  would  be  buried  with  it. 

How,  asked  Miss  Lyon,  could  these  defects 
be  amended?  How  could  she  outfit  middle 
class  girls  with  real  scholarship?  "My 
thought,  feelings  and  judgment  are  turned 
toward  the  middle  classes  of  society,"  she  once 
wrote.  "This  middle  class  contains  the  main- 
springs and  main  wheels  which  are  to  move  the 
world."  How  could  she  minimize  the  expense 
of  a  seminary  course  and  how  could  she  insure 
the  continuance  of  a  course  at  once  cheap  and 
sound,  after  her  death?  It  was  a  formidable 
question,  but  Mary  Lyon  looked  it  square  in 
the  face.  "I  am  about  to  embark  in  a  frail 
boat  on  a  boisterous  sea,"  she  wrote  in  1834. 
"I  know  not  whither  I  shall  be  driven,  nor  how 
I  shall  be  tossed,  nor  to  what  port  I  shall  aim." 
But  she  did  embark,  and  for  the  rest  of  her  life 
she  was  beating  for  the  port. 

A  plan  gradually  took  form  in  her  mind  for 
a  girls '  seminary  endowed  by  free  gifts  like  the 


42    HEEOINES  OF  MODEKN  PKOGRESS 

colleges  for  men.  "Give  to  a  literary  institu- 
tion on  this  principle,  an  amount  of  property 
sufficient  to  be  viewed  as  an  object  of  great 
importance,'  she  argued,  "and  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  extinguish  its  vital  life  by  means 
of  adversity.'  That  meant  permanence.  The 
scholarship  she  would  take  care  of  as  she  had 
already  done  at  Ipswich.  Because  the  build- 
ing and  furnishings  were  owned  outright  by  the 
public,  tuition  would  be  low ;  and  she  could  fur- 
ther diminish  it  by  rallying  round  her  a  staff 
of  teachers  who  would  serve  for  part  pay,  and 
by  making  the  students  keep  house  at  the  school 
on  a  cooperative  plan. 

The  initial  difficulty  would  be  to  get  the  en- 
dowment, for  money  was  scarce  in  the  New 
England  of  1834.  Even  had  it  been  plentiful, 
men  would  not  sink  large  sums  in  a  fanciful 
project  for  the  education  of  girls.  "This  may 
seem  like  a  wild  scheme,'  Miss  Lyon  herself 
confessed,  but  added,  "but  I  cannot  plead  that 
it  is  a  hasty  one." 

A  dozen  prominent  men  met  with  the  young 
woman  at  Ipswich  and  became  temporary  trus- 
tees of  the  enterprise.  She  offered  to  collect 
from  women — that  the  honor  might  be  theirs 
— a  thousand  dollars  to  finance  the  campaign 
for  the  building  fund. 

In  two  months  she  raised  the  money  in  and 
near  Ipswich — from  teachers,  students  and 
women  of  the  town.  The  trustees  chose  a  site 
at  South  Hadley  for  the  proposed  institution, 
and  named  it  Mt.  Holyoke  Female  Seminary. 


MAKY  LYON  43 

Then  began  the  long,  hard  grind  of  piling  up 
the  main  fund. 

Several  agents — pastors  and  professors — 
traveled  over  New  England  to  solicit  dona- 
tions. They  were  not  wholly  unsuccessful, 
though  the  most  faithful  of  them  once  worked 
three  months  and  booked  nothing.  But  to 
Mary  Lyon  must  be  given  credit  for  most 
of  the  subscriptions  that  went  into  Mount 
Holyoke. 

She  scurried  hither  and  thither,  by  train  and 
stage  coach,  all  over  New  England.  "I  wan- 
der about  without  a  home,'  she  wrote, 
"scarcely  knowing  one  week  where  I  shall  be 
the  next."  She  unfolded  her  plan  before 
mixed  audiences  in  churches  and  district 
school-houses.  She  spoke  in  parlor  meetings, 
with  wealthy  ladies  called  together  by  their 
pastors.  She  besieged  rich  men  in  their  offices 
and  in  their  homes.  Even  in  the  rumbling 
coach  she  would  outline  her  dream  to  the 
chance  companions  of  a  journey,  and  opening 
her  familiar  green  money  bag  would  take  their 
offerings  on  the  spot.  At  Squire  White's 
house  a  child  remembered  "  grandfather  and 
Miss  Lyon  sitting  in  this  very  room, — a  table, 
its  leaves  opened,  drawn  near  the  fireplace; 
papers,  plans  of  the  seminary  spread  out  upon 
it;  she  on  one  side  and  he  on  the  other.  Some- 
times they  worked  over  them  until  after  mid- 
night." Careless  of  her  health,  she  braved  all 
weathers :  ( '  Our  personal  comforts  are  delight- 
ful, but  not  essential,"  she  said.  All  of  her 


44    HEKOINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

own  expenses,  down  to  the  last  cent,  she  de- 
frayed herself.  "Had  I  a  thousand  lives,  I 
could  sacrifice  them  all  in  suffering  and  hard- 
ship for  the  sake  of  the  seminary,"  she  declared. 
"Did  I  possess  the  greatest  fortune,  I  could 
readily  relinquish  it  all,  and  become  poor,  and 
more  than  poor,  if  its  prosperity  should  demand 
it." 

Scarcity  of  money  was  not  the  only  obstacle. 
The  pudding-and-pies  argument  had  not  been 
wholly  throttled.  Higher  education,  many 
feared,  would  ruin  a  girl's  health,  and  her  gen- 
tleness and  modesty  as  well,  and  disqualify  her 
for  womanly  duties.  Then  Miss  Lyon,  herself, 
was  harshly  criticised  for  her  boldness  in 
traveling  alone  and  speaking  in  public. 

But  apparently  criticism  did  not  daunt  her 
in  the  least.  "My  heart  is  sick,  my  soul  is 
pained  with  this  empty  gentility,  this  genteel 
nothingness,"  she  cried.  "I  am  doing  a  great 
work.  I  cannot  come  down.'  Again,  "The 
object  of  this  institution  penetrates  too  far  into 
futurity  and  takes  in  too  broad  a  view  to 
discover  its  claims  to  the  passing  multi- 
tude. .  .  .  We  appeal  to  those  who  can  ven- 
ture as  pioneers  in  the  great  work  of  renovat- 
ing a  world."  No  wonder  she  made  the  im- 
pression on  everyone,  from  the  common  day 
laborer  to  the  president  of  a  college,  that  if 
she  set  herself  to  do  anything,  it  was  of  no  use 
to  oppose  her. 

So  the  people  gave  of  their  small  savings. 
There  were  a  few  pledges  of  a  thousand  dol- 


MARY  LYON  45 

lars,  and  many  of  a  hundred.  But  there  were 
long  lists,  too,  of  five,  two,  one  dollar  and  fifty 
cent  subscriptions  and  several  as  low  as  six 
cents.  One  poor  farmer  with  five  sons  to  edu- 
cate, and  no  daughter,  gave  a  hundred  dollars. 
Two  spinsters,  after  they  had  promised  a 
hundred  dollars,  lost  their  property  by  fire, 
but  worked  with  their  own  hands  to  recover 
the  amount.  In  two  years  with  such  self- 
sacrificing  gifts  as  these  from  the  poverty  of 
the  common  people,  Mary  Lyon  had  in  hand 
the  amount  requisite  for  beginning  the  build- 
ing. For  furnishings  she  relied  on  the  various 
towns  each  of  which,  through  its  women,  was 
to  levy  fifty  or  sixty  dollars  for  one  girl's  room. 
Finally  in  October,  1836,  the  corner-stone  was 
laid.  Miss  Lyon  exclaimed,  with  pardonable 
elation,  "The  stones  and  brick  and  mortar 
speak  a  language  which  vibrates  through  my 
very  soul.  How  much  thought  and  how  much 
feeling  have  I  had  on  this  general  subject  in 
years  that  are  past?  And  I  have  indeed  lived 
to  see  the  time  when  a  body  of  gentlemen  have 
ventured  to  lay  the  corner-stone  of  an  edifice 
which  will  cost  about  fifteen  thousand  dollars — 
and  for  an  institution  for  females. " 

Even  yet,  however,  there  were  long  and 
heavy  roads  ahead.  When  the  walls  were  partly 
reared,  their  sandy  foundation  sank  and  they 
fell  in.  Preceding  the  panic  of  1837,  the  money 
market  tightened,  and  many  honest  pledges 
could  not  be  redeemed.  The  date  of  opening 
had  been  set  for  November  8  and  already  in 


46    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

distant  homes  students  were  packing  their 
trunks  to  come ;  but  it  seemed  doubtful  whether 
they  could  be  received  so  early,  or  indeed,  be 
received  at  all ;  and  Mary  Lyon  who  had  hoped 
so  high  now  almost  abandoned  hope.  "When 
I  look  through  to  November  8,'  she  said,  "it 
seems  like  looking  down  a  precipice  of  many 
hundred  feet  which  I  must  descend.  I  can  only 
avoid  looking  to  the  bottom,  and  fix  my  eye  on 
the  nearest  stone  till  I  have  safely  reached  it. ' 

Time  and  again,  in  a  tight  pinch,  she  went  to 
her  own  purse  for  a  hundred  dollars — the  small 
share  of  her  father 's  estate.  She  had  at  last 
to  ask  entering  students  to  borrow  what  they 
could  from  their  friends.  And  lest  any  cent 
be  wasted,  she  superintended  personally  every 
step  of  the  building, — the  mason  work,  the 
painting,  the  laying  of  carpets.  The  workmen 
might  complain  of  her  interference,  it  is  true, 
but  she  felt  responsible  to  the  people  who  had 
given  in  trust  their  hard-earned  mites  and  she 
felt  responsible  to  her  own  vision  of  the  new 
"era  in  education. "  She  did  not  flinch  from 
criticism  for  she  scarcely  had  time  to  notice 
its  sting. 

When  November  8  came,  the  building  was 
still  unfinished.  Girls  from  far  away  got 
down  from  the  stage  coaches  into  a  whirl  of 
confusion  that  would  do  anything  but  relieve 
their  homesickness.  Certain  flustered  gentle- 
men,— later  known  as  trustees,  and  deacons  of 
the  town — were  unloading  furniture  from  the 
vans,  rushing  about  with  cans  of  paint,  and 


MAKY  LYON  47 

tacking  down  carpets.  Women — later  known 
as  trustees '  wives — were  placing  the  furniture, 
setting  up  beds,  and  washing,  paring  and  cook- 
ing in  the  kitchen.  One  woman  of  motherly 
mien  there  was,  who  seemed  to  dominate  the 
rest.  She  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  tumult  and 
ordered  where  each  separate  article  should  go. 
She  greeted  the  newcomers  with  a  glad  word 
and  a  kiss.  And  she  told  them  to  unpack 
quickly  and  roll  up  their  sleeves  and  help  re- 
duce this  chaos  to  order!  For  this  was  to  be 
their  home,  and  she  their  foster-mother,  Mary 
Lyon. 

And  when,  a  little  later,  the  girls  found 
themselves  cornered  on  the  stair,  or  in  the 
kitchen  or  the  back-yard  taking  examinations, 
they  knew  that  Mount  Holyoke  Female  Semin- 
ary had  opened. 

Mary  Lyon  had  realized  her  dream.  She 
had  her  endowed  school  for  middle  class  girls. 
The  charges  for  forty  weeks, — room,  board, 
and  tuition — came  to  sixty-four  dollars. 
Where  space  had  been  reserved  for  only 
eighty  pupils,  one  hundred  and  twenty  were 
chattering  in  the  halls  that  opening  day.  They 
averaged  over  sixteen  years  of  age.  Most  of 
them  were  daughters  of  educated  but  not  of 
wealthy  men.  There  were  few  "harmless 
cumberers  of  the  ground, "  or  of  those  "  whose 
highest  ambition  is  to  be  qualified  to  amuse  a 
friend  in  a  vacant  hour."  Miss  Lyon  had  her 
cheap  seminary  and  her  advanced,  earnest 
students;  all  that  remained  was  to  make  the 


48    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PEOGEESS 

combination  work,  so  that  it  would  prove  its 
worth  and  become  permanent.  Mary  Lyon 
herself  was  surety  that  the  thing  would  work. 

The  course  of  study,  covering  three  years, 
was  lifted  over  from  Ipswich,  and  made  a 
little  harder.  There  were  no  "fashionable' 
classes;  or,  at  any  rate,  such  did  not  count 
toward  graduation.  A  plain  array  of  mathe- 
matics, English,  science,  history  and  philosophy 
could  alone  win  the  coveted  diploma. 

The  teachers,  except  for  an  occasional  lec- 
turer, were  all  women.  This  was  unusual,  and 
in  a  way  hazardous ;  for  there  were  men  avail- 
able who  had  been  through  college,  but  never 
any  woman.  But  even  so,  Mary  Lyon  believed 
that  persons  of  her  own  sex  could  get  on  faster 
with  the  girls.  "Either  gallantry  or  want  of 
confidence  makes  gentlemen  let  young  ladies 
slip  along  without  knowing  much,'  she  said. 
"They  will  make  boys  study.7'  So  she  picked 
women  teachers,  the  best  obtainable,  who  would 
have  faith  in  girls'  brains  and  make  them 
study. 

During  the  first  year  Miss  Lyon  herself  stole 
a  little  time  for  class  room  teaching.  But  that 
was  the  least  of  her  duties.  The  wheels  of  the 
whole  machine  had  been  fitted  by  her.  They 
moved  at  her  bidding,  and  at  every  turn  they 
reflected  some  angle  of  her  character. 

Her  pet  idea  of  cooperative  housework  ran 
smoothly  from  the  beginning.  The  girls  in 
"circles"  under  the  leadership  of  an  older 
student  did  the  cooking,  sweeping  and  so  on, 


MAEY  LYON  49 

each  being  "  assigned  to  that  in  which  she  had 
been  well  trained  at  home.'7  Donors  to  the 
Seminary  had  at  first  been  skeptical  of  this 
feature,  because  to  the  wealthier  students  it 
might  savor  unpleasantly  of  earning  one's 
way.  But  with  so  many  workers  the  tasks 
were  swiftly  despatched.  "No  young  lady 
feels  that  she  is  performing  a  duty  from  which 
she  could  be  relieved  by  the  payment  of  higher 
bills,"  declared  Miss  Lyon.  The  daily  work, 
at  regular  hours,  was  convenient  for  exercise 
in  the  winter;  and  all  the  year  round  it  fos- 
tered a  "union  of  interests, "  "social  vivacity,' 
and  an  atmosphere  of  home,  "very  important,' 
as  Miss  Lyon  judged,  "for  literary  pursuits." 
The  general  routine,  too,  was  home-like 
enough  to  be  familiar  and  pleasant.  The  stu- 
dents rose,  retired,  studied,  and  worked, — 
washing  dishes,  and  filling  their  whale  oil 
lamps  and  wood-bins — all  by  schedule.  By 
schedule,  too,  they  worshiped  daily  in  chapel, 
and  kept  a  sober  Sabbath;  and  by  schedule 
they  did  their  calisthenic  drill.  To  break  up 
the  rigor,  however,  there  were  long,  free  walks 
over  hills,  to  pick  flowers  or  blueberries,  or  for 
the  exercise  alone.  There  were  merry  Thanks- 
giving and  Mayday  festivals.  There  were  lec- 
tures and  vocal  concerts  in  college  hall  by  out- 
side talent.  Once  the  whole  school  was  dis- 
missed to  "see  the  elephant  and  other  rare 
specimens  of  animated  nature"  at  a  menagerie 
in  South  Hadley.  The  instructions  were  not 
to  stay  for  the  performance,  but  to  fall  in  be- 


50    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

hind  the  first  teacher  they  saw  moving  toward 
the  exit.  Happily  no  teacher  moved  until  the 
last  tame  tiger  and  juggling  seal  had  been 
locked  in  his  cage.  A  senior,  the  daughter  of  a 
missionary,  even  dared  to  ride  the  elephant; 
but  she  was  not  expelled  nor  even  reprimanded. 

While  in  these  ways  the  students  felt  in  turn 
Miss  Lyon's  firmness  and  her  geniality,  the 
personal  touch  possible  in  a  school  of  that  size 
counted  for  even  more. 

One  who  was  a  student  in  1837  says  that 
going  near  Miss  Lyon  that  first  year  was  like 
getting  in  front  of  an  automobile.  If  she  had 
been  a  busy  woman  before,  now  she  never 
rested.  Her  assistant  wrote  this  list  of  her 
cares:  "Besides  giving  systematic  religious 
instruction,  she  matured  a  course  of  study, 
watched  the  recitations,  directed  individual 
students  in  the  selection  of  studies,  criticised 
compositions,  instructed  the  middle  class  in 
chemistry,  .  .  .  and  taught  several  other 
branches. "  The  oversight  of  domestic  mat- 
ters drew  further  on  her  strength.  She  had  to 
order  not  only  ink  for  the  school-room,  but 
flour  and  potatoes  for  the  kitchen,  and  wood 
and  oil  for  the  parlors  and  bedrooms.  She 
had  to  supervise  the  repairing  of  the  linen,  and 
make  out  menus  for  each  meal.  And  when  a 
cook  or  a  teacher  felt  indisposed,  or  married, 
or  turned  missionary,  she  shouldered  their 
duties,  sometimes  for  a  good  long  space — until 
a  new  recruit  could  be  broken  in.  This 
glimpse  of  her  by  a  student  suggests  the  stress 


MAKY  LYON  51 

of  events  and  her  readiness  to  cope  with  them: 
"I  remember  seeing  her  once  in  the  domestic 
hall  whither  she  had  fled  at  the  sound  of  some 
need,  trailing  a  large  piece  of  dress  lining 
pinned  to  her  back,  having  escaped  from  the 
hands  of  the  dressmaker,  who  in  the  room  was 
holding  the  scissors  ready  for  a  clip  at  the  next 
chance. ' ' 

In  the  chapel  talks,  again,  her  direct  influence 
was  very  strong.  There  she  put  into  words 
the  few  simple  rules  that  had  governed  her  own 
conduct,  and  which  she  wished  to  transmit  to 
the  school. 

The  missionary  fever  was  then  at  its  height 
and  Miss  Lyon  encouraged  her  girls  to  go  to 
the  foreign  field.  "Be  willing  to  do  anything 
anywhere ;  be  not  hasty  to  decide  that  you  have 
no  physical  or  mental  strength,  no  faith  or 
hope.'  But  she  advised  them  not  to  expect  to 
make  over  this  world,  and  recommended,  be- 
sides piety,  "a  sound  constitution  and  a  merry 
heart."  Though  she  never  talked  doctrine, — 
or  perhaps  because  of  it — her  quiet  and  steady 
religious  fervor  was  all  pervasive.  Few  girls 
left  the  seminary  in  her  time  without  a  certifi- 
cate of  Christianity  as  well  as  of  scholarship. 
"I  pray  as  truly  that  the  bread  may  be  sweet 
for  this  great  family  as  I  do  for  the  conversion 
of  the  world,' '  she  said. 

But  the  phrase  that  became  a  proverb  of  the 
school  was,  "We  must  consider  the  good  of  the 
whole.7  "The  young  lady  needs  to  feel  her- 
self a  member  of  a  large  community,"  she  said, 


52    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

"where  the  interests  of  others  are  to  be  sought 
equally  with  her  own."  For  the  good  of  the 
whole  Miss  Lyon  could  wield  a  strict  and  re- 
lentless discipline.  She  could  gently  dismiss 
a  girl  that  had  no  brains  for  study  and  expel 
one  that  used  her  brains  for  mischief.  Her 
shrewd  understanding  of  character  usually  ap- 
palled wrong  doers  before  the  act.  "Why, 
young  ladies,"  she  once  said,  "by  the  principle 
of  comparative  anatomy  I  can  tell  by  one  or 
two  characteristics  what  you  are  likely  to  make 
of  yourselves.  I  could  walk  down  this  aisle  and 
tell  by  the  tie  of  your  shoes  who  were  good 
students  in  geometry."  She  pointed  with  her 
finger  as  she  spoke,  and  there  was  an  audible 
drawing  in  of  feet. 

Generally  she  disciplined  by  kindness  alone. 
The  institution  was  an  experiment,  she  often 
said ;  the  eyes  of  the  world  were  on  it ;  and  the 
least  act  of  the  least  of  them  all  would  tell  not 
only  on  the  fate  of  this  single  venture,  but  on 
the  whole  future  of  female  education.  More- 
over, were  they  not  simply  a  large  family,- 
they  the  daughters,  she  the  mother — and  should 
they  not  always  behave  with  the  charity  and 
considerateness  becoming  in  relatives  so  close? 
"I  thought  I  should  always  arrange  my  hair 
this  way,  and  always  wear  a  turban,"  she  re- 
marked, in  reference  to  her  fondness  for  old 
styles.  Yet  at  the  wish  of  her  "daughters,' 
who  doubtless  had  one  eye  on  the  fashion 
plates,  she  discarded  the  turban  in  favor  of  the 
cap.  "I  will  do  almost  anything  to  please 


MAEY  LYON  53 

daughters/'  she  said.  Could  the  daughters  do 
less? 

So  it  was  as  a  mother  that  her  students  liked 
best  to  remember  her.  When  they  first  dis- 
mounted at  the  door  she  received  them  as  in  a 
second  home.  When  they  pined  for  the  places 
and  friends  they  could  not  see  until  the  year 
was  out,  she  spared  no  effort  to  revive  their 
spirits.  She  gave  patient  ear  to  their  com- 
plaints, heartened  them  in  their  ambitions, 
and  helped  them  plan  their  futures, — all  as 
though  their  welfare  were  her  own.  "I  have 
loved  her  more  and  more,'  wrote  one  girl, 
"and  have  called  her  mother,  and  she  has 
treated  me  with  all  the  affectionate  tenderness 
of  a  mother." 

Take  it  all  together,  during  that  first  year, 
Mary  Lyon  was  about  as  busy  as  a  person  can 
reasonably  be.  "Do  not  ask  for  a  life  of  ease; 
you  are  asking  a  curse,'  she  had  advised  the 
students ;  and  in  that  point  of  view  she  was  cer- 
tainly the  least  cursed  and  the  happiest  of  mor- 
tals. But  she  was  not  always  happy,  for  she 
carried  too  great  a  burden  of  uncertainty. 
Could  Mt.  Holyoke  prolong  its  life  after  this 
first  year,  or  would  the  public  desert  it  and  let 
it  be  bought  up  for  a  private  academy?  She 
had  done  her  part ;  she  had  taxed  every  energy 
as  chief  executive  of  the  school;  and  she  had 
been  teacher,  and  friend,  and  mother  to  over 
a  hundred  girls.  But  still  she  knew  that  ad- 
verse opinion  blew  strong  in  many  quarters. 
Would  the  institution  live,  after  all? 


54    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

On  the  anniversary  day  she  made  note  of 
some  hopeful  signs.  Examinations,  with  a 
"free  interchange  of  questions  and  answers," 
were  attended  by  outsiders.  The  orator  from 
England,  after  hearing  a  few  of  them,  secluded 
himself  to  write  a  new  speech,  because  "it 
would  never  do  to  present  anything  he  had 
brought  with  him.'  Evidently  the  girls  had 
done  their  part,  too.  "On  the  whole,'  Miss 
Lyon  confessed,  "the  success  of  our  institution 
in  every  department  is  greater  than  I  antici- 
pated." 

By  the  opening  of  the  second  year,  however, 
any  lingering  doubt  she  may  have  had  was 
finally  dispelled.  Four  hundred  would-be  stu- 
dents— so  suddenly  did  the  school  spring  into 
fame — had  to  be  turned  away !  And  the  disap- 
pointed ones  entered  their  applications  for  the 
next  year  and  the  next. 

Then,  no  longer  doubting  its  success,  men  be- 
gan to  give  or  bequeath  great  sums  to  it, — 
seventy  thousand  dollars  in  a  few  years,  enough 
to  free  the  plant  from  debt  and  to  build  large 
additions.  Mary  Lyon  in  her  frail  craft  had 
surely  made  port.  She  had  established  a  girl's 
advanced  school  that  was  publicly  endowed  and 
inexpensive  to  attend;  and  now,  she  had  every 
reason  to  believe,  it  was  destined  for  perma- 
nence. 

"The  institution  must  live,"  Miss  Lyon 
wrote  in  1839,  "but  whether  its  influence  shall 
be  extended  and  its  principles  disseminated,  is 
yet  to  be  determined."  But  she  fully  counted 


MAEY  LYON  55 

•upon  the  second  result  also.  Even  at  the  lay- 
ing of  the  corner-stone  she  had  said,  "Surely 
the  Lord  hath  remembered  our  low  estate. 
This  will  be  an  era  in  female  education.  The 
work  will  not  stop  with  this  institution.  It  is 
a  concession  on  the  part  of  gentlemen  in  our 
behalf  which  can  be  used  again  and  again. '  In 
fact,  Mt.  Holyoke  was  never,  to  the  mind  of  its 
founder,  a  mere  solitary  school,  existing  for  its 
own  sake  and  that  of  the  few  pupils  it  could 
hold;  it  was  a  laboratory  where  some  im- 
portant principles  were  being  worked  out,  and 
where  she  hoped  to  change  the  trend  of  female 
education  for  all  time  to  come. 

As  for  the  principles,  she  was  bound,  if  it  lay 
in  human  nature,  to  put  them  to  the  proof  at 
Mt.  Holyoke.  Every  day  the  school  was 
modeled  anew  under  her  anxious  hands. 
"There  is  a  best  way  to  do  everything,'  she 
believed.  Even  in  the  kitchen — where  eleven 
years  of  testing  and  changing  did  not  quite 
satisfy  her — she  sought  that  one  best  way. 
Mr.  Hanks,  president  of  the  trustees,  is  said 
to  have  been  so  wearied  by  her  continual  ex- 
perimenting that  he  would  tiptoe  past  her  door 
lest  he  be  called  in  to  hear  some  new  proposal. 

There  could  be  but  one  outcome  to  this. 
From  Illinois,  Alabama  and  Wisconsin,  people 
about  to  found  schools  for  women  wrote  for 
the  plan  of  Mt.  Holyoke.  The  "era  in  edu- 
cation "  had  been  decisively  launched.  Could 
Mary  Lyon  have  looked  forward  half  a  century 
she  would  have  seen  women's  colleges  almost 


56    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

as  numerous,  as  rich,  and  as  exacting  in 
scholarship  as  those  of  men;  and  she  would 
have  heard  them  all  acknowledge  their  debt  to 
her  and  to  Mt.  Holyoke.  More  than  that 
she  would  have  seen  women  studying  side  by 
side  with  men  in  state  universities,  with  no  dis- 
tinction of  courses ;  and  those  women  too  would 
owe  some  thanks  to  her.  For  she  had  given, 
not  the  first,  but  the  most  "  clear  and  forcible 
expression  to  the  truth  that  intelligence  is  as 
valuable  in  a  woman's  mind  as  in  a  man's.' 
She  had  been,  by  several  years,  the  first  to  de- 
mand that  a  woman's  intelligence  be  fed  and 
cherished  by  the  public. 

Such  looking  forward,  however,  was  for- 
bidden. Nor  did  Miss  Lyon  live  to  see  much 
accomplished  in  fact.  She  had  sometimes  la- 
bored so  hard  that  to  recuperate  she  had  to 
sleep  two  or  three  days  at  a  stretch.  Her  sal- 
ary— all  she  would  take — of  two  hundred  dol- 
lars a  year,  could  not  purchase  her  many  com- 
forts. Her  vacations  were  infrequent,  brief, 
and  generally  plagued  with  the  endless  prob- 
lems of  her  school.  Happy  or  not,  she  was 
certainly  overworked.  She  died  in  1849,  when 
her  friends  had  hoped  that  ten  or  twenty  years 
yet  stretched  before  her. 

Her  failure  to  economize  her  strength  would 
seem  to  contradict  one  of  her  own  favorite 
rules.  "  Never  throw  anything  in  the  fire  that 
a  bird  will  open  its  bill  to  get,' '  she  warned  her 
pupils.  She  had  had  to  practice  that  shrewd 
economy  as  a  girl  at  home,  and  as  a  young 


MARY  LYON  57 

woman  fighting  her  way  through  school.  Yet 
now,  as  a  teacher,  she  had  not  hesitated  to 
throw  "in  the  fire"  her  own  life. 

But  the  contradiction  is  not  real.  "The 
right  use  of  money  is  to  accomplish  what  you 
wish  with  it,7  she  said.  "A  poor  man  may 
not  be  as  economical  in  spending  four  pence  as 
a  rich  man  in  spending  a  thousand  dollars. " 
The  same  might  be  said  of  the  years  of  one's 
life. 

In  spending  her  life  she  had  obtained  what 
she  wished — an  education  for  girls.  By  her 
own  definition,  therefore,  she  would  not  have 
gained  much  by  living  longer.  ' '  Better  twenty 
years  with  an  education  than  forty  without," 
she  once  said.  In  other  words,  she  had  in- 
vented a  new  economy.  She  had  doubled  her 
own  life  and  that  of  any  ambitious  girl  who 
should  be  born  thereafter.  Not  by  turning 
back  the  hour  glass,  as  the  hill  farm  child  had 
done,  but  by  feeding  the  numan  mind  she  had 
succeeded,  in  the  only  possible  way,  in  "mak- 
ing more  time." 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON 

THE  first  event  clearly  stamped  upon  Eliza- 
beth Cady's  memory  was  the  birth  of  a 
sister.  Elizabeth  was  four  years  old,  and  al- 
ready had  four  sisters  and  one  brother.  When 
the  Scotch  nurse  carried  her  in  to  see  the  baby, 
she  heard  someone  exclaim,  "What  a  pity  the 
baby  is  a  girl!"  Others  in  the  room  wagged 
their  heads  dolefully  in  recognition  of  the  in- 
fant's misfortune  in  not  being  created  a  boy. 
Elizabeth,  as  a  girl,  had  fallen  in  the  way  of 
a  good  deal  of  fun,  and,  so  far  as  she  could  see, 
her  sisters  managed  to  extract  as  much  enjoy- 
ment from  life  as  her  brother.  What  mat- 
tered it  whether  one  were  boy  or  girl? 

That  was  a  serious  question.  Just  at  pres- 
ent, however,  her  baby  mind  did  not  dwell  upon 
it.  Her  father,  a  judge  and  a  member  of  Con- 
gress, was  somewhat  austere  by  nature;  and 
the  mother,  though  noted  for  her  independence 
and  vivacity,  leaned  to  rigidness  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  children.  But  the  numerous  girls 
had  inherited  a  share  of  vivacity,  and  they 
seem  to  have  had  a  merry  time.  On  rainy 
days  they  would  climb  to  the  garret  and  dress 
up  in  their  ancestors'  clothes,  and  then  crack 
hickory  nuts,  nibble  the  maple  sugar  cakes, 
chew  the  dried  herbs  and  sweet  flag,  whirl  the 

58 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON       59 

old  spinning  wheels,  throw  and  catch  the  bags 
of  cloth,  and  play  hide  and  seek  among  the 
barrels  and  boxes.  And  then,  there  was  a 
forest  to  roam  in  and  a  mill-pond  to  sail  on. 
In  winter,  there  was  always  a  bobbing  party  or 
snow  battle  in  progress  in  some  part  of  town. 
And  since  Peter,  the  colored  servant,  was  sel- 
dom out  of  her  shadow,  Elizabeth  might  wan- 
der far  without  hurt  and  without  fear  of  re- 
buke when  she  returned  home. 

Elizabeth  was  born  November  12,  1815,  in 
Johnstown,  New  York.  She  is  described  as 
"a  plump  little  girl,  with  a  very  fair  skin, 
rosy  cheeks,  good  features,  dark  brown  hair, 
and  laughing  blue  eyes."  She  had  one  defect, 
however;  at  least  so  averred  a  student  in  her 
father's  office.  "Your  eyebrows  should  be 
darker  and  heavier,"  said  he,  "and  if  you  will 
let  me  shave  them  once  or  twice,  you  will  be 
much  improved.'  The  girl  consented — once. 
But  her  odd-looking  face,  without  its  brows, 
aroused  so  much  merriment  that  she  never  sat 
for  a  second  treatment. 

Elizabeth  was  much  given  to  acts  which 
some,  according  to  the  point  of  view,  called 
rebellious  and  some,  ingenious  and  daring. 
For  example,  she  would  not  part  from  Peter 
in  church,  but  preferred  to  sit  with  him  in  the 
negro  pew.  "He  was  the  only  colored  member 
of  the  church  and,  after  all  the  other  communi- 
cants had  taken  the  sacrament,  he  went  alone  to 
the  altar.  Dressed  in  a  new  suit  of  blue,  with 
gilt  buttons,  he  looked  like  a  prince  as,  with 


60    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

head  erect,  lie  walked  up  the  aisle  .  .  .  ; 
and  yet  so  strong  was  the  prejudice  against 
color  in  1823  that  no  one  would  kneel  beside  him. 
On  leaving  us,  on  one  of  these  occasions,  Peter 
told  us  all  to  sit  still  until  he  returned;  but, 
no  sooner  had  he  started,  than  the  youngest 
of  us  slowly  followed  after  him  and  seated 
herself  close  beside  him.  As  he  came  back, 
holding  the  child  by  the  hand,  what  a  lesson  it 
must  have  been  to  that  prejudiced  congrega- 
tion!" 

This  incident,  in  a  way,  presaged  one  main 
branch  of  her  future  activity.  Another  branch, 
closely  related  to  the  first,  was  indicated  in 
the  mill-pond  adventure.  One  day  when  no 
boys  were  there  to  captain  the  raft,  Elizabeth 
and  her  sister  startled  the  crowd  of  waiting 
girls  by  declaring  that  they  could  propel  and 
steer  it  as  well  as  a  boy!  Once  aboard  and 
caught  in  the  current,  however,  they  found 
they  could  not  lift  the  poles.  They  drifted 
slowly  toward  the  dam,  unable  to  move  a  finger 
to  avoid  their  fate.  But  they  caught  their 
breath,  sat  down  flat  in  the  middle  of  the  raft 
and  held  fast.  They  floated  over  the  falls 
right-side  up,  and  glided  gracefully  away  down 
the  stream  until  overtaken  and  drawn  ashore 
by  Peter. 

The  boys  rallied  Elizabeth  a  long  time  for 
the  disastrous  voyage.  But,  after  all,  she  had 
bravely  tried;  the  experiment,  far  from  being 
a  total  failure,  had  brought  out  some  thrilling 
features  new  even  to  the  boys;  and  Peter  had 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        61 

saved  her,  and  showed  her  how  to  do  better 
next  time.  She  was  doing  a  little  to  batter 
down  the  assumption  of  superiority  on  the 
part  of  her  male  friends.  Her  friendship  with 
the  negro,  "the  only  being,  visible  or  invisible, 
of  whom  we  had  no  fear,' '  was  an  essential  ele- 
ment in  her  success.  These  simple  relations 
engraved  themselves  deeply  on  the  girl's  mind. 
And,  as  she  said  long  after,  in  her  memoirs, 
"Who  can  estimate  the  power  of  a  child's  sur- 
roundings in  its  earliest  years,  the  effect  of 
some  passing  word  or  sight  on  one,  that  makes 
no  impression  on  another?' 

At  the  age  of  eleven,  Elizabeth  passed 
through  an  ordeal  the  results  of  which  can  be 
traced  very  definitely.  Her  only  brother  died. 
The  father,  whose  fondest  hopes  crumbled  with 
the  taking  off  of  his  male  heir,  could  not  be 
comforted.  When  Elizabeth  climbed  upon  his 
knee,  to  attempt  a  word  of  solace,  he  sighed 
and  said,  "0,  my  daughter,  I  wish  you  were  a 
boy!"  Then  she  threw  her  arms  about  his 
neck  and  cried,  "I  will  try  to  be  all  my  brother 
was!" 

And  try  she  did.  The  chief  things  to  be 
done  to  equal  a  boy,  she  thought,  were  to  ac- 
quire proficiency  in  Greek  and  horsemanship. 
Hastening  to  her  pastor,  she  confided  to  him 
her  resolve,  and  he  fell  in  with  it  so  far  as  to 
teach  her  Greek.  Mr.  Cady  himself,  perhaps 
unaware  of  her  peculiar  ambition,  taught  her 
to  drive,  and  to  hurdle  a  fence  or  ditch  on 
horseback.  But  in  spite  of  her  progress,  the 


62    HEKOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

hoped-for,  "Well,  a  girl  is  as  good  as  a  boy 
after  all"  from  her  father  was  never  spoken. 
His  only  response  to  the  minister's  praise  was 
to  pace  the  room  and  sigh — and  Elizabeth  knew 
what  he  was  thinking.  In  the  Johnstown  Acad- 
emy, she  carried  off  a  prize — a  Greek  Testa- 
ment— in  rivalry  with  a  class  of  boys  much 
older  than  herself.  "Now,"  she  said,  "my 
father  will  be  satisfied  with  me. ' '  She  bounded 
into  his  office  exclaiming,  "There,  I  got  it!' 
"He  took  up  the  book,  asked  me  some  ques- 
tions about  the  class,  the  teachers,  the  spec- 
tators, and,  evidently  pleased,  handed  it  back 
to  me.  Then  while  I  stood  waiting  for  him  to 
say  something  which  would  show  that  he 
recognized  the  equality  of  the  daughter  with 
the  son,  he  kissed  me  on  the  forehead  and  ex- 
claimed, with  a  sigh,  *  Ah,  you  should  have  been 
a  boy!'  " 

There  was  no  means,  apparently,  by  which 
she  could  better  her  low  condition.  No — and 
all  women  were  branded  with  the  same  iron. 
Out  of  school  hours  Elizabeth  liked  to  loiter 
about  her  father's  office.  There  she  heard  the 
clients  state  their  cases — mothers  who,  by  the 
will  of  their  deceased  husbands,  were  left  de- 
pendent on  the  bounty  of  a  son ;  daughters  who 
lived  by  the  charity  of  an  elder  brother,  the 
heir  of  the  family  estates;  wives  who  at  mar- 
riage signed  over  their  property,  and  indeed 
themselves  as  part  of  it,  to  the  groom — and 
who,  all  of  them,  mothers,  sisters  and  wives 
had  been  victims  of  the  neglect  or  malice  of 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        63 

the  men.  Why,  queried  the  girl,  did  the  males 
of  the  race  have  this  unjust  mastery?  They 
did  not  earn  it  by  their  exceptional  talents ;  had 
she  not  demonstrated  that  already  in  riding 
and  study  and  countless  other  ways? 

The  students  in  Mr.  Cady's  office  said 
woman's  disabilities  were  imposed  by  law. 
They  cited  certain  of  the  most  odious  statutes, 
and  showed  her  where  they  were  written  in  her 
father's  books.  She  delved  further  on  her 
own  account.  The  unhappy  legal  status  of  her 
sex  perplexed  and  angered  her.  She  must  cor- 
rect it,  straightway.  She  would  mark  the  un- 
just pages  and  at  the  first  opportunity  cut 
every  one  of  them  out  of  the  books,  for  she 
supposed  this  mutilation  of  her  father's  library 
would  extinguish  the  laws. 

Mr.  Cady  fortunately  got  wind  of  the  in- 
tended massacre  and  averted  it  by  explaining 
that  the  laws  would  continue  just  the  same  if 
he  and  all  his  books  together  were  sacrificed 
to  knife  or  fire.  But  "when  you  are  grown  up, 
and  able  to  prepare  a  speech,"  he  said,  "you 
must  go  down  to  Albany  and  talk  to  the  legis- 
lators. ...  If  you  can  persuade  them  to 
pass  new  laws,  the  old  ones  will  become  a  dead 
letter." 

At  this  point  Elizabeth  Cady 's  mind  was  fully 
illuminated  as  to  the  cause  of  the  gloom  on  the 
day  of  her  sister's  birth.  Women  might  out- 
strip men  in  any  or  all  physical  and  intel- 
lectual feats;  yet  still  their  subjection  was  de- 
creed by  law;  and  since  they  had  not  a  jot  of 


64    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGEESS 

influence  in  the  enactment  or  revision  of  laws, 
how  could  they  ever  hope  for  justice!  The 
girl  made  the  second  big  resolution  of  her  life. 
Or  rather,  she  reaffirmed,  with  slight  changes, 
the  one  she  had  uttered  at  her  brother's  death. 
She  would  "be  everything  her  brother  was,' 
not  in  muscular  or  mental  prowess  only,  but  in 
the  general  estimation  of  society  as  reflected  in 
the  legal  guarantee  of  rights. 

In  1830,  when  fifteen  years  old,  Miss  Eliza- 
beth was  sent  to  the  Young  Ladies7  Seminary 
at  Troy.  This  school,  under  the  principalship 
of  Mrs.  Emma  Willard,  was  then  among  the 
leading  institutions  in  America  for  the  higher 
education  of  women.  But  to  one  so  jealous  for 
the  rights  of  her  sex,  its  advantages  were  cast  in 
shadow  because  she  was  debarred  from  Union, 
the  college  of  her  boy  friends,  where  the 
scholarship  was  still  more  advanced.  Besides, 
she  was  already  versed  in  all  the  studies 
offered  at  Troy,  except  French,  music  and 
dancing.  She  employed  most  of  her  time 
wishing  she  were  somewhere  else,  or  in  hatch- 
ing up  mischief.  So  she  carried  away  from 
her  two  seminary  years  little  of  value  save  a 
settled  belief  that  girls  ought  to  have  the  same 
education  as  boys,  in  the  best  of  their  colleges 
— perhaps  even  co-education. 

The  next  years,  up  to  1840,  were  spent  de- 
lightfully at  home.  Miss  Cady  was  still  a 
lively  and  rather  a  mischievous  girl.  She  par- 
ticipated, with  her  friends,  in  games  and  prac- 
tical jokes  often  in  a  spirit  of  wild  hilarity. 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        65 

Once,  armed  with  sprinkling  pots,  she  and  her 
Cousin  Lizzie  battled  for  two  hours  against  two 
other  girls  whose  weapons  were  large  syringes 
charged  with  milk.  The  contest  was  ended 
only  when  "Cousin  Charlie,'  whom  they  had 
ambushed  and  showered  with  both  water  and 
milk,  turned  at  bay  with  a  bottle  of  liquid 
blacking,  and  forced  them  all  to  beg  for 
quarter. 

At  the  same  time,  the  opportunity  for  self 
improvement  in  these  years  at  home  was  not 
slighted.  Miss  Cady  would  emulate  boys  in 
all  good  exercises,  but  she  would  not  scout  the 
traditional  arts  of  her  own  sex.  She  now 
wrestled  with  all  the  domestic  arts  as  zealously 
as  she  ever  had  with  Greek.  To  the  value  of 
cooking,  she  brings  this  whimsical  proof:  "We 
read  in  the  Scriptures  that  Abraham  prepared 
cakes  of  fine  meal  and  a  calf  tender  and  good, 
which,  with  butter  and  milk,  he  set  before  the 
three  angels  in  the  plains  of  Mamre.  .  .  . 
I  would  like  to  call  the  attention  of  my  readers 
to  the  dignity  of  this  profession,  which  some 
young  women  affect  to  despise.  The  fact  that 
angels  eat  shows  that  we  may  be  called  upon 
in  the  next  sphere  to  cook  even  for  cherubim 
and  seraphim.  How  important,  then,  to  cul- 
tivate one's  gifts  in  that  direction!" 

In  fact,  the  business  of  being  a  girl  so  ab- 
sorbed her  that  she  might  have  forgotten  en- 
tirely her  rather  uncertain  call  to  become  a  re- 
former. But  through  a  family  friendship  with 
Gerrit  Smith  of  Peterboro,  she  was  swept  into 


66    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

the  current  of  national  politics  and  thence  into 
another  kind  of  politics  peculiarly  her  own. 

Mr.  Smith  was  a  generous  host  and  a  pro- 
gressive thinker,  and  the  radicals  of  every  re- 
form constantly  hovered  about  his  home  for 
a  chance  to  air  their  heresies.  He  was  an 
abolitionist  and  his  mansion  a  station  on 
the  " underground  railroad.'  Upon  frequent 
visits  with  his  family,  Miss  Cady  heard  and 
discussed  the  rousing  themes  there  broached. 
On  one  occasion,  Mr.  Smith  led  her  and  a  bevy 
of  her  companions,  under  a  pledge  of  secrecy, 
to  a  locked  room  in  the  third  story,  where  sat 
a  fugitive  quadroon  girl.  "Harriet,"  he  said, 
addressing  the  girl,  "I  have  brought  all  my 
young  cousins  to  see  you.  I  want  you  to  make 
good  abolitionists  of  them  by  telling  them  the 
history  of  your  life. ' 

The  girls  had  never  before  seen  a  slave  face 
to  face.  For  two  hours  they  questioned  her 
about  what  she  had  undergone  in  slavery. 
Her  answers  only  vivified  what  they  had  al- 
ready heard — but  that  was  enough.  "We  all 
wept  together  as  she  talked,  and  when  Cousin 
Gerrit  returned  to  summon  us  away,  we  needed 
no  further  education  to  make  us  earnest  abo- 
litionists.' 

Now  the  abolition  theory  had  one  direct  cor- 
ollary that  a  person  of  Miss  Cady's  stamp 
would  be  quick  to  see.  The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  guaranteed  the  franchise  to  all 
persons  except  negroes,  idiots,  lunatics,  crimi- 
nals and  women.  It  naturally  hurt  the  pride 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON       67 

of  some  women  to  be  classed  with  negroes,  not 
to  say  with,  lunatics  and  felons.  But  if  the 
colored  people  were  to  be  freed  in  recognition 
of  their  sense  and  their  humanity,  what  should 
be  done  with  the  women?  Should  the  finest 
types  of  our  civilization — daughters,  wives  and 
mothers — be  left,  without  even  the  black  man 
for  company,  in  a  class  with  the  mentally  and 
morally  diseased?  Miss  Cady  saw  that  aboli- 
tion and  woman's  rights  went  together.  And 
like  thousands  all  over  the  country,  her  open 
faith  in  one  cause  little  by  little  strengthened 
her  secret  hope  for  the  other. 

This  abolition  fever  first  spurred  Miss  Cady's 
interest  in  Henry  B.  Stanton,  a  young  anti- 
slavery  orator  who  was  sometimes  a  guest  at 
the  Smiths'.  He  later  proved  to  have  many 
[personal  charms  also— and  she  as  many  for 
him.  They  became  engaged,  and  in  1840  were 
married.  But  Miss  Cady  held  that  a  man  with 
his  zeal  for  freedom  should  not,  even  in  form, 
enslave  a  woman;  and  they  agreed  to  omit  the 
word  "obey"  from  the  ceremony. 

Thus  a  champion  of  negro  rights  and  one 
who  was  at  least  a  passive  enemy  of  woman's 
wrongs  were  logically  mated.  In  May,  1840, 
they  took  passage  to  London  as  delegates  to  a 
world's  anti-slavery  convention.  And  there, 
as  it  fell  out,  the  young  wife  was  made  to  dis- 
avow the  cause  borrowed  from  her  husband, 
and  to  return,  with  quickened  ardor,  to  her 
own. 

The  organizers   of  the  convention  had  in- 


68    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

vited  delegates  from  all  the  anti-slavery  so- 
cieties in  the  civilized  world.  They  were  not 
aware  that  women  composed  many  such  so- 
cieties in  America  and  were  accustomed  to 
speak  and  vote.  When  the  odd  contingent  of 
women  arrived,  therefore,  it  was  denied  en- 
trance to  the  hall.  A  hot  debate  on  the  ques- 
tion occupied  an  entire  day.  No  woman  was 
allowed  the  floor.  Scripture,  ancient  history 
and  English  custom  were  liberally  quoted  to 
prove  the  impropriety  of  the  presence  of 
women  in  such  an  assembly.  Though  the  argu- 
ments were  feeble  and  easily  brushed  aside, 
the  tradition  behind  them  was  impregnable. 
The  women  were  shut  out;  they  could  get  only 
permission  to  sit  in  a  curtained  loft.  There, 
for  twelve  days,  they  listened  to  abolitionists 
who,  "while  eloquently  defending  the  natural 
rights  of  slaves,  denied  freedom  of  speech  to 
one-half  the  people  of  their  own  race.' 

It  was  no  wonder  that  before  the  convention 
adjourned  the  words  were  flying  about  every- 
where, "It  is  about  time  some  demand  was 
made  for  new  liberties  for  women.'  Mrs. 
Stanton  walked  to  her  hotel  arm  in  arm  with 
Lucretia  Mott,  the  Quakeress.  Her  brain  was 
awhirl  with  indignant  thoughts.  Why  did  cus- 
tom make  it  a  tragedy  to  be  born  a  girl  ?  Why 
did  the  laws  throw  women  upon  the  kindness 
of  men,  who  were  too  often  unkind?  Why 
were  the  best  women  of  America  excluded 
from  the  discussion  of  this  subject  on  which 
they  knew  as  much  as  any  men!  It  was  a  bar- 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        69 

baric  tyranny  of  sex,  and  could  be  endured  no 
longer. 

Mrs.  Stanton  once  more  revised  and  enun- 
ciated her  childish  resolution  to  be  all  her 
brother  had  been.  As  soon  as  she  returned 
home,  she  declared  she  would  form  a  society  to 
advocate  the  rights  of  women.  This  time  her 
purpose  was  definite,  and  it  would  stand. 

Nevertheless,  her  proposed  rebellion  had  for 
some  years  to  be  postponed.  For,  as  she  says, 
"The  puzzling  questions  .  .  .  that  had  oc- 
cupied so  much  of  my  thoughts,  now  gave  place 
to  the  practical  one,  'What  to  do  with  a 
baby.7  " 

At  the  birth  of  her  first  child,  Mrs.  Stanton 
promptly  dropped  out  of  public  affairs  in  or- 
der to  school  herself  in  the  profession  of 
motherhood.  It  was  an  office  too  much  neg- 
lected, she  thought,  and  too  much  debased  by 
the  ignorance  of  those  who  performed  it. 
She  would  regard  it  in  another  way!  So  she 
pored  over  books  new  and  old  and  carefully 
observed  the  behavior  of  her  own  baby,  and 
others — and  gradually  evolved  a  scientific 
regimen.  The  kind  of  superstitions  she  had 
to  combat  and  the  way  she  did  it  may  be  shown 
by  the  dispute  with  the  nurse  who  bandaged 
the  child. 

"Can  you  give  me  one  good  reason,  nurse, 
why  a  child  should  be  bandaged!7 

"Yes,?  she  said  emphatically,  "I  can  give 
you  a  dozen." 

"I  only  asked  for  one,"  the  mother  replied. 


70    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

"Well,"  said  the  nurse,  "the  bones  of  a  new 
born  infant  are  soft,  like  cartilage,  and,  unless 
you  pin  them  up  snugly,  there  is  danger  of 
their  falling  apart. " 

"It  is  very  remarkable, "  retorted  Mrs.  Stan- 
ton,  "that  kittens  and  puppies  should  be  so 
well  put  together  that  they  need  no  artificial 
bracing,  and  the  human  family  left  wholly  to 
the  mercy  of  a  bandage.  Now  I  think  this 
child  will  remain  intact  without  a  bandage,  and 
if  I  am  willing  to  take  the  risk,  why  should  you 
complain  ? ' ' 

The  nurse  was  unconvinced.  She  washed 
her  hands  of  the  new  fangled  notion.  Every 
morning  she  bandaged  the  child,  and  as  regu- 
larly the  mother  took  the  bandage  off.  "It 
has  been  proved  since,'  comments  Mrs.  Stan- 
ton  with  satisfaction,  "to  be  as  useless  an  ap- 
pendage as  the  vermiform.' 

At  her  home  in  Chelsea,  Massachusetts, — Mr. 
Stanton  practiced  law  in  Boston,  just  across 
the  river, — the  young  mother  delighted  as 
freshly  in  all  other  branches  of  housekeeping. 
"I  felt  the  same  ambition  to  excel  in  all  de- 
partments of  the  culinary  art  that  I  did  at 
school  in  the  different  branches  of  learning. 
My  love  of  order  and  cleanliness  was  carried 
throughout,  from  parlor  to  kitchen.  ...  I 
put  my  soul  into  everything  and  hence  enjoyed 
it.  ...  There  is  such  a  struggle  among 
women  to  become  artists  that  I  really  wish 
some  of  their  gifts  could  be  illustrated  in  clean, 
orderly,  beautiful  homes." 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        71 

Add  to  this  preoccupation  with  domestic  con- 
cerns the  freedom  of  good  society,  of  lectures, 
concerts  and  other  diversions  in  Boston,  and 
it  can  be  guessed  why  for  eight  years  Mrs. 
Stanton  forgot  "women's  woes,"  or  at  least 
forsook  the  idea  of  tilting  against  them  in  per- 
son. But  in  1847  the  family  moved  to  Seneca 
Falls,  New  York.  There  the  tranquil  beauty 
of  her  existence  was  roughly  overthrown. 

She  had  an  increasing  number  of  children, 
and  the  care  of  them — nursing,  clothing  and 
teaching  them,  taking  them  to  school,  to  the 
shoemaker's  and  the  dentist's — taxed  her  en- 
durance to  the  danger  limit.  Her  large  hous-e 
and  grounds  were  hard  to  keep  in  order;  and 
since  the  novelty  of  housekeeping  had  worn 
away  and  reliable  servants  could  not  be  had, 
her  once  attractive  duties  became  a  weary  bur- 
den. Her  residence,  furthermore,  stood  on  the 
outskirts  of  town  and  she  was  virtually  im- 
prisoned there  by  muddy  roads.  Accustomed 
as  she  had  been  to  the  brilliant  intercourse  of 
Boston,  this  confinement  irked  her  grievously. 

"I  suffered  with  mental  hunger  which,  like 
an  empty  stomach,  is  very  depressing.  I 
had  books,  but  no  stimulating  companion- 
ship. .  .  .  Cleanliness,  order,  the  love  of 
the  beautiful  and  artistic,  all  faded  away  in  the 
struggle  to  accomplish  what  was  absolutely 
necessary  from  hour  to  hour.  ...  I  now 
fully  understood  the  practical  difficulties  most 
women  had  to  contend  with  in  the  isolated 
household,  and  the  impossibility  of  woman's 


72    HEEOINES  OF  MODEKN  PKOGEESS 

best  development  if  in  contact,  the  chief  part 
of  her  life,  with  servants  and  children. "  And 
this  understanding  stung  her  to  open  protest. 

"The  general  discontent  I  felt  with  woman 's 
portion  as  wife,  mother,  housekeeper,  physician 
and  spiritual  guide,  .  .  .  and  the  wearied, 
anxious  look  of  most  women,  impressed  me 
with  a  strong  feeling  that  some  active  meas- 
ures should  be  taken.  .  .  .  My  experience 
at  the  World's  Anti-Slavery  Convention,  all  I 
had  read  of  the  legal  status  of  women,  and  the 
oppression  I  saw  everywhere,  together  swept 
across  my  soul,  intensified  now  by  many  per- 
sonal experiences.  ...  I  could  not  see 
what  to  do,  or  where  to  begin — my  only 
thought  was  a  public  meeting  for  protest  and 
discussion ! ' ' 

While  in  this  tumult  of  mind,  she  happened 
upon  Lucretia  Mott  again  at  a  friend's  house. 
She  poured  out  the  story  of  her  griefs.  Some- 
one suggested  "the  propriety  of  holding  a 
woman's  convention,' '  as  they  had  long  ago  in 
London  talked  of  doing.  The  little  company 
all  gave  assent,  and  next  morning,  July  14, 
1848,  the  Seneca  County  Courier  announced  a 
convention  "to  discuss  the  social,  civil  and 
religious  condition  and  rights  of  women.' 

The  meeting  took  place  July  nineteenth  and 
twentieth  in  the  Wesleyan  Church  at  Seneca 
Falls.  The  women  meanwhile,  mistrustful  of 
their  own  invention,  had  "resigned  themselves 
to  the  faithful  perusal  of  various  masculine 
productions/'  and  had  pitched  upon  the  Decla- 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        73 

ration  of  Independence  for  the  model  of  their 
protest.  With  still  greater  modesty,  they  had 
resorted  to  libraries  of  law,  church  usage,  and 
social  custom  to  find  their  eighteen  grievances. 
On  the  basis  of  these  they  had  draughted  a  set 
of  twelve  resolutions. 

Several  friendly  men  were  present  at  the 
little  chapel  on  the  opening  day,  and  one, 
James  Mott,  took  the  chair.  The  object  and 
necessity  of  the  meeting  was  stated  by  Lu- 
cretia  Mott,  and  others.  Then  Mrs.  Stanton 
read  her  celebrated  "  Declaration  of  Senti- 
ments." 

It  began  with  "When  in  the  course  of  hu- 
man events'  and,  with  a  few  substitutions, 
copied  the  preamble  of  the  historic  document 
of  1776.  It  held  that  all  men  and  women  are 
created  equal.  But  "the  history  of  mankind  is 
a  history  of  repeated  injuries  and  usurpations 
on  the  parts6f  man  toward  woman,  having  in 
direct  object  the  establishment  of  an  absolute 
tyranny  over  her.'  To  prove  this,  the  eight- 
een facts  were  "submitted  to  a  candid  world, " 
beginning  with  "He  has  never  permitted  her  to 
exercise  her  inalienable  right  to  the  elective 
franchise."  He  had  denied  her,  the  indict- 
ment went  on,  an  equal  right  in  the  universi- 
ties, the  trades  and  professions;  a  share  in 
political  offices  and  honors;  equality  in  mar- 
riage, and  the  possession  of  children ;  the  right 
to  hold  property  or  to  receive  just  wages;  the 
right  to  make  contracts,  sue  and  be  sued,  and 
to  testify  in  courts  of  justice.  And,  in  view  of 


74    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

this  degradation,  it  was  insisted  that  women 
"have  immediate  admission  to  all  the  rights 
and  privileges  which  belong  to  them  as  citizens 
of  the  United  States. ' ' 

The  twelve  resolutions  were  unanimously  ap- 
proved hy  the  assembly,  all  but  one.  That  one 
read,  "It  is  the  duty  of  the  women  of  this  coun- 
try to  secure  to  themselves  their  sacred  right 
to  the  elective  franchise."  Some  women 
feared  this  would  defeat  their  more  conserva- 
tive demands.  Lucretia  Mott  cautioned,  "Liz- 
zie, thee  will  make  the  movement  ridiculous.'' 
But  Mrs  Stanton  said,  "No!"  The  right  to 
choose  rulers  and  legislators  preceded  all  the 
others  in  importance,  for  through  it  all  others 
could  be  secured ;  without  it,  women  could  only 
gain  ground  through  the  tardy  generosity  of 
men.  She  had  learned  that  truth  unforgettably 
in  her  father's  law  office!  So,  with  Frederick 
Douglass,  she  argued  and  plead  for  the  resolu- 
tion until  the  convention  let  it  go  through  with 
the  rest. 

This  was  the  first  open  and  formal  plea  for 
woman  suffrage  in  the  United  States.  It  was 
the  direct  outgrowth  of  a  young  girl's  sense  of 
inequality  with  boys,  and  her  determination 
somehow  to  be  equal.  And  her  private  in- 
juries and  longings  must  have  been  connected, 
in  a  sympathetic  way,  with  a  general  condition 
in  the  four  corners  of  the  nation.  For  it  was 
said  that  this  was  "the  most  momentous  re- 
form that  had  yet  been  launched  on  the  world 
— the  first  organized  protest  against  the  injus- 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON       75 

tice  which  had  brooded  for  ages  over  the  char- 
acter and  destiny  of  one-half  the  human  race." 
The  proceedings  of  the  convention  were  no 
sooner  blown  abroad  than  the  press  and  pulpit 
made  haste  to  ridicule  and  satirize  it.  The 
public  in  general  feared  what  the  poem  said : 

Confusion  has  seized  us  and  all  things  go  wrong, 
The  women  have  leaped  from  '  their  spheres/ 

And,  instead  of  fixed  stars,  shoot  as  comets  along, 
And  are  setting  the  world  by  the  ears! 

In  courses  erratic  they're  wheeling  through  space 
In  brainless  confusion  and  meaningless  chase. 

The  authors  of  the  Declaration  were  de- 
nounced and  jeered  as  "sour  old  maids,' 
"childless  women,"  and  "divorced  wives" — 
though  as  a  matter  of  fact  most  of  them  an- 
swered to  none  of  these  epithets.  A  majority 
of  those  who  had  signed  the  document  lost  heart 
under  the  persecution  and  crossed  out  their 
names.  But  Mrs.  Stanton  did  not  believe  the 
movement  portended  "widespread  and  per- 
manent injury"  to  the  female  character,  nor  to 
the  ultimate  happiness  of  men.  If  she  tam- 
pered with  her  signature  at  all,  it  was  to  under- 
score it. 

She  soon  began  to  speak,  on  request,  at  vari- 
ous points  in  the  neighborhood.  When  a  min- 
ister or  an  editor  criticised  her  "meaningless 
chase,"  she  would  reply  from  the  platform  or 
in  some  friendly  paper.  Law,  science,  his- 
tory and  philosophy  lent  her  arguments,  and 


76    HEROINES  OF  MODEKN  PROGRESS 

she  made  a  doughty  and  a  winning  defense. 
For  example,  at  a  Quaker  meeting-house  where 
she  had  spoken,  a  man  with  a  broad-brimmed 
hat  arose  and  in  a  tone  not  unlike  a  rooster's 
remarked,  "All  I  have  to  say  is,  if  a  hen  can 
crow,  let  her  crow."  A  second  New  York  con- 
vention was  called,  one  month  after  the  first, 
at  Eochester ;  and  Ohio,  Indiana,  Massachusetts 
and  Pennsylvania  followed  in  quick  succession. 
Mrs.  Stanton  saw,  with  no  little  surprise,  that 
her  firebrand  had  kindled  the  heaped-up  tinder 
in  all  the  states;  and  soon — might  not  the 
blaze  defy  control? 

In  1851,  Mrs.  Stanton  met  Susan  B.  Anthony, 
a  Quakeress  about  her  own  age.  Miss  Anthony 
had  kept  school  until  the  questions  of  anti- 
slavery  and  temperance  caught  her  notice.  At 
first  she  had  laughed  at  the  Woman's  Declara- 
tion; yet,  says  Mrs.  Stanton,  "I  liked  her  thor- 
oughly from  the  beginning.  .  .  .  There  she 
stood  with  her  good,  earnest  face  and  genial 
smile,  .  .  .  the  perfection  of  neatness  and 
sobriety.'  And,  in  a  few  conversations,  Mrs. 
Stanton  quite  reversed  the  other's  thoughts, 
and  clasped  hands  with  her  in  an  eternal  part- 
nership. It  was  a  lucky  union;  for  Miss  An- 
thony, though  not  so  able  a  writer  as  her  friend, 
was  a  better  executive;  and,  being  more  tem- 
perate, she  was  able  to  fire  with  better  effect 
the  thunderbolts  that  the  latter  forged.  She 
would  soon  lay  down  her  temperance  banner 
to  become  the  "Napoleon"  of  woman  suffrage. 
The  two  women  were  destined  to  stand  shoul- 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        77 

der  to  shoulder  for  the  next  forty-five  years, 
goading  each  other  always  to  more  daring  and 
tireless  efforts.  Mrs.  Stanton  had  won  a  faith- 
ful ally— one  who  would  in  some  respects  be- 
come her  trusted  leader. 

During  the  next  few  years  the  campaign  was 
directed  from  Mrs.  Stanton 's  residence.  There, 
harried  usually  by  domestic  trifles,  the  women 
wrote  their  fiery  articles,  protests  and  petitions, 
and  from  there  they  went  out,  full  armed,  to 
speak,  whenever  occasion  offered.  They  can- 
vassed the  state  in  every  way  their  brains  could 
devise.  'Usually  their  acts  were  caustically 
compared  to  "the  wit  of  the  clown  in  the  cir- 
cus, or  the  performances  of  Punch  and  Judy  on 
fair  days,  or  the  minstrelsy  of  gentlemen  with 
blackened  faces."  But  the  vigor  of  the  opposi- 
tion was  to  them  a  sign  that  their  blows  were 
cutting  the  quick.  Miss  Anthony  invaded  the 
state  conventions  of  teachers,  and  within  a  dec- 
ade won  equality  there  for  women.  In  1854, 
Mrs.  Stanton,  over  hopeful,  perhaps,  made  shift 
to  address  the  New  York  Legislature,  in  behalf 
of  equal  rights.  The  speech  failed  of  its 
avowed  object;  it  could  not  do  otherwise.  But 
it  was  widely  read  and  evoked  much  favorable 
comment.  Judge  Cady  asked  in  amazement 
how  one  so  tenderly  reared  could  have  learned 
the  wrongs  of  her  sex. 

"Here  in  your  office,"  she  told  him,  "listen- 
ing to  the  complaints  women  made  to  you.' 

"I  think,'  he  said,  "I  can  find  even  more 
cruel  laws  than  those  you  have  quoted." 


78    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

He  did  find  them,  and  she  incorporated  them 
in  her  speeches.  It  looked  as  though  the 
woman  was  gaining  from  him  a  small  measure 
of  the  approbation  she  had  yearned  for  as  a 
child.  And  knowing  him  no  easy  convert,  she 
had  faith  that  others  were  being,  and  had  been, 
won  over  in  the  same  way. 

In  1861,  the  plea  of  women  for  the  ballot  was 
drowned  in  the  rising  thunders  of  the  Civil 
War.  Political  parties  in  the  North  now 
begged  Mrs.  Stanton  and  her  friends  to  let 
their  agitation  sleep  until  the  affair  with  the 
South  was  settled.  They  acceded,  and  for  five 
years  lent  their  forces  to  help  emancipate  the 
negro. 

This  did  not  mean,  however,  that  she  had 
laid  down  her  arms.  She  knew,  what  some 
women  did  not,  that  the  war  meant  more  than 
the  pitting  of  Northern  men  against  Southern 
men,  and  the  suppression  of  a  rebellion;  and 
she  did  not  clamor,  like  them,  for  sewing  and 
preserving  and  such  practical  charities  for  the 
army  in  the  field.  She  knew  the  political  issues 
of  the  struggle ;  knew  they  all  turned,  first  and 
last,  on  slavery.  The  main  thing  to  ensure  in 
the  war  was  not  victory  of  arms  for  any  one 
section  but  freedom  for  the  negroes!  Could 
that  be  accomplished?  She  hoped  so.  For  a 
tnegro  freed  would  be  a  negro  enfranchised. 
From  the  low  estate  he  had  held  he  would  as- 
cend to  full  citizenship  and  seize  the  vote.  And 
perhaps,  argued  Mrs.  Stanton,  with  that  prece- 
dent women  could  rise  too.  Once  the  door  of 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        79 

privilege  was  opened,  perhaps  women  could 
crowd  through  also,  and  separate  themselves 
from  the  insane  and  the  criminal. 

So  she  helped  form  the  National  Loyal 
League,  "to  impress  on  the  nation's  conscience 
that  freedom  for  the  slaves  was  the  only  way 
to  victory."  This  league  convened  in  New 
York,  May  14,  1861,  and  passed  two  significant 
resolutions : 

"That  the  women  of  the  Eevolution  were  not 
wanting  in  heroism  and  self-sacrifice,  and  we, 
their  daughters,  are  ready  in  this  war,  to 
pledge  our  time,  our  means,  our  talents,  and 
our  lives,  if  need  be,  to  secure  the  final  and 
complete  consecration  of  America  to  freedom.' 
"That  never  can  be  a  true  peace  in  this  Re- 
public until  the  civil  and  political  rights  of  all 
citizens  of  African  descent  and  all  women  are 
practically  established. ' 

In  the  years  that  followed,  however,  the 
mention  of  "women"  was  tactfully  omitted. 
Mrs.  Stanton  and  her  supporters  pushed  for- 
ward the  negro,  both  for  his  own  sake,  and  to 
make  him  a  stalking  horse.  They  scattered 
tracts,  "thick  as  snow  flakes,"  from  Maine  to 
Texas.  They  called  meetings  where  the  policy 
of  the  government  was  discussed.  They  cir- 
culated petitions  which  were  endorsed  by  three 
hundred  thousand  persons.  The  Republican 
and  Abolition  parties  praised  their  wisdom 
in  restricting  their  efforts  to  one  subject,  and 
called  them  "wise,  loyal,  and  clear  sighted.' 
When  at  last  the  slave  was  emancipated,  and 


80    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PKOGEESS 

Congress  began  trying  to  frame  a  fourteenth 
amendment  to  enfranchise  him,  the  women 
peeped  out  from  behind  their  stalking  horse. 
But  they  had  been  deluded.  They  were  still 
outside  the  city. 

The  amendment  could  not  be  written  with- 
out the  word  "male";  for  that  would  enfran- 
chise not  only  white  women  but  the  colored 
women  of  the  South.  l '  Suffrage  for  black  men 
will  be  all  the  strain  the  Eepublican  party  can 
stand,'  said  a  senator,  "without  extending  it 
to  i wenches.'  "  So  the  white  women  had  to  be 
shut  out  with  the  black.  While  striving  for  the 
freedom  of  the  slaves,  a  measure  countenanced 
by  the  Eepublican  party,  they  had  been  lauded 
to  the  skies.  But  now  when  they  asked  for  the 
franchise  along  with  "their  only  respectable 
compeer'  under  the  constitution,  their  tran- 
scendent virtues  vanished,  says  Mrs.  Stanton, 
"like  dew  before  the  morning  sun."  The 
national  legislators  were  not  yet  ready  for  uni- 
versal suffrage.  The  word  "male"  was  re- 
tained. 

Mrs.  Stanton  was  now  fully  committed  to 
suffrage,  whether  in  New  York,  the  nation  at 
large,  or  in  any  part  of  the  nation.  The  battle 
had  opened,  once  for  all;  and  she  was  alert  to 
seize  every  advantage  and  to  force  the  strong- 
holds of  the  enemy.  Since  no  party  would  own 
her,  she  conceived  the  idea  of  launching  a 
new  party!  In  1868  she  nominated  herself 
for  the  national  House  of  Eepresentatives. 
She  may  have  been  surprised,  but  was  cer- 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        81 

tainly  not  dismayed  when  out  of  twenty-three 
thousand  votes  she  polled  only  two  dozen. 
She  wished,  she  said  cheerfully,  that  she  could 
have  procured  the  photographs  of  her  twenty- 
four  unknown  friends. 

In  the  summer  of  1867  she  had  hurried  to  the 
West,  for  hopeful  signs  were  reported  there. 
Kansas  was  about  to  vote  on  a  constitution 
which  extended  the  franchise  to  negroes  and 
the  "less  muscular  sex," — an  event  that, 
whether  it  succeeded  or  not,  might  truly  bo 
said  to  mark  an  epoch.  Mrs.  Stanton  and  Miss 
Anthony  stumped  the  state.  The  returns 
showed  one-third  of  the  votes  favorable  to 
them.  The  nation  wondered,  for  no  politician 
had  seriously  looked  for  such  strength  in  the 
women. 

But  Mrs.  Stanton  exulted.  The  opposition 
was  beginning  to  weaken.  Furthermore,  it 
occurred  to  her  that  the  one-third  vote  in 
Kansas  might  have  been  a  majority  vote,  but 
for  one  thing.  The  people  were  uninformed. 
Isolated  as  they  were,  with  few  trains  and 
muddy  roads,  few  of  them  had  heard  the  mes- 
sage of  the  campaigners.  And  the  papers,  such 
as  the  people  took,  uniformly  derided  woman 
suffrage.  Should  there  not,  asked  Mrs.  Stan- 
ton,  be  a  publication  dedicated  to  women  and 
equality  ? 

Others  before  her  had  nursed  the  same  idea ; 
and  Lucy  Stone  had  said,  "We  must  have  a 
paper,  and  dear,  brave,  sensible  Mrs.  Stanton 
must  be  the  editor."  Mrs.  Stanton  had  a 


82    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PEOGEESS 

house  and  a  large  family  to  oversee,  and  did 
not  hunger  for  the  regular  duties  of  a  news- 
paper office.  But  before  she  reached  New 
York,  money  had  been  offered  for  a  weekly 
publication  to  be  called  the  Revolution — if  only 
she,  with  Parker  Pillsbury,  would  edit  it.  The 
business  management  was  to  rest  in  Miss 
Anthony's  hands.  The  editor  could  therefore 
write  most  of  her  articles  at  home  and  not  be 
forced  to  neglect  her  housekeeping.  The  com- 
bination suited  her  exactly,  and  she  accepted. 

For  two  years  and  a  half  now  she  spoke  her 
mind  plainly  and  fully.  "She  so  abounds  in 
metaphors  and  pithy  phrases,'  wrote  an  ad- 
miring friend,  "that  a  characteristic  article 
from  her  pen  is  like  a  Chinese  jar  of  chow-chow 
— filled  with  little  lumps  of  citron,  apricot,  and 
ginger,  all  swimming  in  a  sweet  and  biting 
syrup.7  She  hit  right  and  left,  as  one  paper 
said,  at  everybody  and  everything  that  op- 
posed the  granting  of  suffrage  to  females  as 
well  as  males.  "Eadical  and  defiant  in  tone," 
was  her  own  estimate,  "it  awoke  friends  and 
foes  alike  to  action.  Some  denounced  it,  some 
ridiculed  it,  but  all  read  it.'  The  friends  it 
awoke,  however,  were  not  heavy  advertisers; 
and  for  want  of  money  from  that  source  the 
Revolution  finally  died. 

But  Mrs.  Stanton  was  not  thereby  thrown 
out  of  employment.  Already  in  1865  the  Na- 
tional Woman's  Suffrage  Association  had  been 
formed  with  her  as  president.  The  same  year, 
in  furtherance  of  the  work,  she  went  on  the 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        83 

lyceum  platform.  For  twelve  years,  now, 
eight  months  in  the  year,  she  fared  up  and 
down  the  land.  She  had  a  lecture  on  ' '  Mother- 
hood "  and  one  on  " Woman,'  and  many,  va- 
riously styled,  on  suffrage.  Wherever  in  Cali- 
fornia, Iowa,  Missouri,  Illinois,  Nebraska  or 
any  state,  her  favorite  doctrine  was  made  a 
political  issue,  thither  she  and  Miss  Anthony 
hurried  with  speech  and  pamphlet. 

They  had  often  to  utter  their  message  under 
the  most  trying  circumstances.  Once,  in 
Michigan,  they  happened  in  at  a  deaf  and 
dumb  institution.  Mrs.  Stanton  had  just  said, 
" There  is  one  comfort  in  visiting  this  place; 
we  shall  not  be  asked  to  speak,'  when  the 
superintendent  came  up  with,  "Ladies,  the 
pupils  are  assembled  in  the  chapel  ready  to 
hear  you!"  They  spoke,  while  the  superin- 
tendent repeated  in  sign  language  what  was 
said.  At  another  time  their  boat  was  ice- 
bound in  the  middle  of  the  Mississippi  Eiver. 
Someone  shouted,  "Speech  on  woman  suf- 
frage!" They  rose  to  the  occasion  and  there 
at  midnight  had  the  pleasure  of  making  several 
new  allies.  In  Kansas,  Mrs.  Stanton  one  night 
was  refused  lodgings  in  a  house,  and  ensconced 
herself  in  the  carriage.  "I  had  just  fallen  into 
a  gentle  slumber,  when  a  chorus  of  pronounced 
grunts  and  a  spasmodic  shaking  of  the  carriage 
revealed  to  me  the  fact  that  I  was  surrounded 
by  those  long-nosed  black  pigs,  so  celebrated 
for  their  courage  and  pertinacity.  They  had 
discovered  that  the  iron  steps  of  the  car- 


84    HEEOINES  OF  MODEKN  PROGRESS 

riage  made  most  satisfactory  scratching  posts. 
Alas!  thought  I,  before  morning  I  shall  be 
devoured."  She  plied  the  whip  upon  them, 
but  without  effect;  so  she  went  to  sleep  and 
let  them  scratch  at  their  pleasure.  "I  had 
a  sad  night  of  it,  and  never  tried  the  carriage 
again,  though  I  had  many  equally  miserable 
experiences  within  four  walls.'7 

All  these  material  trials  could  have  been 
cheerfully  borne — but  not  so  cheerfully  the 
obloquy  that  went  with  the  title  of  suffragist. 
While  friends  were  numerous  and  on  the  in- 
crease, the  majority  of  both  sexes  still  stig- 
matized her  reform  as  that  of  women  "strong 
minded/  brazen  and  unfeminine. 

The  press  ridiculed  and  slandered  her.  "No 
woman/  said  a  New  York  paper,  "can  con- 
vert herself  into  a  feminine  Knight  of  the  Rue- 
ful  Visage  and  ride  about  the  country  attempt- 
ing to  redress  imaginary  wrongs  without  leav- 
ing her  own  household  in  a  neglected  condition 
that  must  be  an  eloquent  witness  against  her." 
The  accusation  hurt  none  the  less  because  it 
was  false. 

The  halls  in  which  she  spoke  were  frequently 
packed  with  the  hostile,  who  hissed  and  jeered, 
and  cut  short  her  discourse  by  burning  cayenne 
pepper  on  the  stove.  Insulting  letters  were  a 
regular  portion  of  her  morning  mail.  Old 
friendships  grew  cold,  and  some  people  she 
would  have  liked  for  friends  refused  her  hand. 
As  president  of  the  National  Association  she 
was  constantly  opposed  by  rising  leaders  who 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        85 

thought  they  could  run  the  society  better;  and 
but  for  Miss  Anthony's  cry,  ".0,  how  I  have 
agonized  over  my  utter  failure  to  make  you 
feel  and  see  the  importance  of  standing  fast 
and  holding  the  helm  of  our  good  ship  to  the 
end  of  the  storm77 — she  would,  more  than  once, 
have  resigned.  It  took  courage  to  be  a  suf- 
fragist in  1870.  But  Mrs.  Stanton  had  the 
courage,  the  courage  of  conviction;  because  if 
she  had  lacked  the  conviction  she  would  not 
have  been  Mrs.  Stanton. 

Mrs.  Stanton  held  the  executive  chair  of  the 
national  society  up  to  1893,  and  presided  grace- 
fully at  its  stormy  meetings.  In  that  year  she 
resigned,  retaining,  however,  the  title  of  honor- 
ary president  until  her  death  in  1902.  She  still 
occasionally  spoke  from  the  platform,  with 
arguments  as  keen,  witty  and  logical  as  ever. 

The  principal  labor  of  her  later  years  was 
the  writing  of  the  "History  of  Woman  Suf- 
frage,' in  collaboration  with  Miss  Anthony 
and  Miss  Gage.  Into  these  three  heavy  vol- 
umes she  gathered  the  facts  about  the  first 
forty  years  of  the  struggle,  and  made  them  as 
readable  as  a  story  meant  for  amusement.  In 
1898  she  brought  out  her  "Eighty  Years  And 
More,' '  which,  in  the  sprightliness  of  its  narra- 
tion, affirmed  her  independence  of  time. 

Mrs.  Stanton,  meanwhile,  had  always  proudly 
sustained  her  record  as  a  housekeeper,  and  had 
reared  seven  children  in  a  highly  creditable 
manner.  She  never  lost  sight  of  the  impor- 
tance of  wise  and  devoted  parenthood.  The 


86    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

theme  was  on  her  lips  as  often  as  that  of  suf- 
frage. In  all  her  travels,  it  seems,  she  was  a 
tireless  friend  to  the  ignorant  parents  of  weep- 
ing babes.  In  one  case,  unable  to  finish  her 
instructions,  she  telegraphed  them,  to  the  huge 
amusement  of  operators  along  the  wire,  "Give 
the  baby  water  six  times  a  day/  "Imagine 
me/  she  wrote,  after  she  had  become  famous 
as  an  agitator,  "day  in  and  day  out,  watch- 
ing, bathing,  dressing,  nursing  and  prome- 
nading the  precious  contents  of  a  little  crib  in 
the  corner  of  my  room.  .  .  .  Come  here 
and  I  will  do  what  I  can  to  help  you  with  your 
address,  if  you  will  hold  the  baby  and  make 
the  puddings.'  Even  in  the  office  of  the 
Revolution  she  looked  less  the  editor  than  the 
mother.  "The  short,  substantial  figure,  with 
its  handsome  black  dress  arid  crown  of  curls, 
is  sufficiently  interesting.  The  fresh,  girlish 
complexion,  the  laughing  blue  eyes  and  jolly 
voice  are  yet  more  so.  Beside  her  stands  her 
sixteen  year  old  daughter.  "We  study  Cady 
Stanton's  handsome  face  as  she  talks  on 
rapidly  and  facetiously.  Nothing  little  or  mean 
in  that  face;  no  line  of  distrust  or  irony; 
neither  are  there  wrinkles  of  care — life  has 
been  pleasant  to  this  woman.' 

Yet  for  all  her  preaching  on  motherhood,  she 
held  it  barbarous  that  woman  should  be  con- 
fined strictly  to  the  sphere  of  the  home. 
Woman,  she  said,  can  refine  and  elevate  poli- 
tics as  she  has  missions,  schools,  literature  and 
general  society.  On  the  other  hand,  she  needs 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON        87 

the  ballot  for  her  own  protection;  and  she 
needs  its  broadening  influence  the  same  as  she 
needs  that  of  school  and  society.  Association 
with  children  and  servants — the  affairs  of 
motherhood — do  not  occupy  and  nourish  the 
whole  woman  any  more  than  fatherhood  occu- 
pies and  nourishes  the  whole  man. 

Mrs.  Stanton's  last  words  on  the  suffrage 
were  brave  and  hopeful;  but  they  were  barbed 
also  with  a  sharp  reproof  to  the  women  of  her 
day.  The  reform  had  moved  very  slowly,  she 
admitted.  The  majority  of  women  even  yet 
did  not  want  it.  And  so,  she  said,  were  the 
majority  of  Chinese  women  content  with  band- 
aged feet;  but  did  that  make  the  custom  right? 
Eeforms  were  always  inaugurated  by  a  small, 
despised  minority.  "That  a  majority  of  the 
women  of  the  United  States  accept,  without 
protest,  the  disabilities  which  grow  out  of  their 
disfranchisement  is  simply  an  evidence  of  their 
ignorance  and  cowardice,  while  the  minority 
who  demand  a  higher  political  status  clearly 
prove  their  superior  intelligence  and  wisdom.' 

Her  own  intelligence  and  wisdom  both  as  a 
domestic  woman  and  a  reformer  were  splen- 
didly honored  on  her  eightieth  birthday,  No- 
vember 12,  1895.  The  Woman's  Council,  com- 
posed of  twenty  national  societies,  many  of 
them  unconnected  with  suffrage,  tendered  her 
a  celebration  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House, 
New  York.  Theodore  Tilton,  in  a  letter  de- 
clared, "Every  woman  who  seeks  the  legal 
custody  of  her  children  or  the  legal  con- 


88    HEROINES  OF  MODEBN  PEOGEESS 

trol  of  her  property;  every  woman  who  finds 
the  door  of  a  college  or  a  university  open- 
ing to  her;  every  woman  who  administers  a 
post  office  or  a  public  library;  every  woman 
who  enters  upon  a  career  of  medicine,  law  or 
theology;  every  woman  who  teaches  a  school, 
or  tills  a  farm,  or  keeps  a  shop;  every  woman 
who  drives  a  horse,  rides  a  bicycle,  skates  at  a 
rink  ...  or  even  snaps  a  kodak;  every 
such  woman  owes  her  liberty  largely  to  your- 
self and  to  your  earliest  and  bravest  co- 
workers.  ' 

If  one  looks  back  he  will  note  that  practically 
all  these  rights  were  demanded  by  Mrs.  Stan- 
ton  in  her  Declaration  of  1848.  And  in  1896, 
when  Idaho,  following  the  example  of  Colo- 
rado, Utah  and  Wyoming,  enfranchised  its 
women,  she  might  be  pardoned  for  boasting 
that  her  one-time  "  grave  mistake "  was  gen- 
erally called  "a  great  step  in  progress. " 


HAEBIET    BEECHEE    STOWE 

WHEN  one  of  Harriet  Beecher's  pets  died 
she   interred   it   with    impressive    cere- 
monies  and  on  its   gravestone  inscribed  this 
"epithet": 

Here  lies  our  kit 
Who  had  a  fit 

And  acted  queer; 
Shot  with  a  gun, 
Her  race  is  run, 

And  she  lies  here. 

The  incident  is  typical,  for  Harriet  as  a  child 
was  always  in  close  companionship  with  the 
dumb  members  of  the  household.  She  enter- 
tained herself  not  only  with  the  animals,  but 
with  the  flowers  and  trees,  the  lakes  and  hills,  the 
invigorating  winds  and  all  the  wild  out-of-doors 
of  her  native  Connecticut.  Summer  and  win- 
ter she  ran  free,  a  happy  country  lass,  garden- 
ing, carrying  wood,  and  tramping  over  the  hills 
with  her  brothers.  "I  was  educated  first  and 
foremost  by  nature, "  she  afterward  said, 
"  wonderful,  beautiful,  ever-changing  as  she  is 
in  that  cloudland,  Litchfield.' 

Yet  nature  in  the  shape  of  Harriet's  parents, 

89 


90    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

had  even  a  stronger  influence,  both  early  and 
late.  The  mother,  with  her  last  breath,  had 
called  her  six  sons  about  her,  and  prayed  that 
all  might  embrace  the  Christian  faith  and  be- 
come preachers  of  the  gospel,  like  their  father. 
The  memory  of  that  prayer  and  of  the  pious 
woman  who  made  it  deterred  the  young  girl 
from  evil  and  incited  her  to  good,  like  the  pres- 
ence of  the  living  person;  perhaps, — despite 
the  belief  of  the  age  that  women  should  keep 
silence  in  meeting — it  disposed  her  also  to 
some  kind  of  religious  profession.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  the  trend  that  she  took  from  her  father 
was  unmistakable. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Beecher  was  a  Congrega- 
tional minister  in  Litchfield,  Conn.,  where 
Harriet  was  born,  June  14,  1811.  He  em- 
phasized the  harsher  side  of  religion — the 
" strong  doctrine"  and  the  punishment  for  sin. 
Not  content  with  catechising  his  offspring  out- 
of-book,  he  taught  them  to  argue  and  to  prove 
— their  own  sinfulness ! — by  taking  himself  the 
weaker  side  of  a  question  and  leading  them 
along  until  they  tripped  him  up. 

As  Mr.  Beecher  was  Harriet's  chosen  coun- 
selor, so  his  library  was  her  favorite  retreat. 
Here  the  minister  would  sit,  turning  the  leaves 
of  his  Bible  and  Concordance,  writing,  mutter- 
ing to  himself,  and  oblivious  of  all  the  world. 
Secure  in  his  presence,  Harriet  would  rifle  the 
shelves  and  curl  up  in  a  corner  with  her  books 
around  her — astonishing  books  they  were, 


HAEEIET  BEECHEE  STOWE        91 

sometimes,  with  theological  titles,  such  as 
"Toplady  on  Predestination."  "Pilgrim's 
Progress"  was  there;  and  after  upsetting  a 
barrel  or  two  of  sermons  in  the  attic,  Harriet 
uncovered  a  copy  of  the  '  '  Arabian  Nights, ' '  and 
a  fragment  of  "The  Tempest.'  On  these  and 
Mather's  "Magnolia,"  she  formed  her  literary 
taste. 

The  minister's  library  naturally  was  rich  in 
other  things  than  books.  It  was  the  principal 
theater  of  the  intellectual  life  of  the  town. 
Thither  came  neighboring  ministers  to  debate 
hotly  on  theological  matters  and  Harriet  lis- 
tened eagerly  to  their  wisdom.  There,  too,  a 
sea-faring  uncle,  Captain  Foote,  spun  his  fab- 
ulous yarns,  and,  in  a  spirit  of  mischief,  as- 
serted that  Catholics  were  well-intentioned 
folk  on  the  whole,  and  that  some  Turks  were 
as  honest  as  some  Christians.  There  an  aunt, 
once  a  resident  of  the  West  Indies,  dwelt  with 
loathing  upon  the  cruelties  of  the  slavery  sys- 
tem. Harriet  often  heard  her  tell  how  she  sat 
by  her  window  in  the  still,  tropical  night  and 
wished  "the  island  might  sink  in  the  ocean, 
with  all  its  sin  and  misery,  and  that  she  might 
sink  with  it." 

Mr.  Beecher  frowned  upon  the  uncle's  here- 
sies, but  he  fervently  shared  the  ideas  of  the 
aunt.  "I  remember  his  prayers,  morning  and 
evening,  in  the  family,  for  'poor,  oppressed, 
bleeding  Africa,'  wrote  his  daughter,  "that 
the  time  of  her  deliverance  might  come ;  prayers 


92    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

offered  with  strong  crying  and  tears,  prayers 
that  indelibly  impressed  my  heart,  and  made 
me,  what  I  am,  the  enemy  of  all  slavery.' 

Harriet  dutifully  attended  the  church  in 
which  her  father  preached.  Sometimes  she 
had  a  merry  day  of  it,  as  when  Dr.  Beecher 
exchanged  pulpits  with  Reverend  Mills.  As 
Father  Mills  rose  up  and  began  to  read  the 
opening  hymn,  "Sing  to  the  Lord  aloud,7  Trip, 
the  Beechers'  dog,  who  had  stolen  into  church, 
broke  into  a  dismal  howl. 

"Father  Mills  went  on  to  give  directions  to 
the  deacons  to  remove  the  dog  in  the  same  tone 
in  which  he  read  the  hymn,  so  that  the  effect 
of  the  whole  performance  was  somewhat  as 
follows : 

« 

Sing  to  the  Lord  aloud, 
Please  put  that  dog  out ! 
And  make  a  joyful  noise. 

"We  youngsters  .  .  .  sank  in  waves  and 
billows  of  hysterical  giggles  while  Trip  was  put 
out,  and  the  choir  did  its  best  at  making  a 
*  joyful  noise.' 

For  the  most  part,  however,  people  in  the 
Litchfield  church  wore  looks  of  deep  sobriety. 
Dr.  Beecher  was  an  earnest  man,  and  he 
prayed  and  preached  from  his  heart  out.  His 
discourses  on  slavery  drew  tears  down  the 
hardest  faces  of  the  farmers  of  his  congrega- 
tion. His  sermons  on  sin  neither  young  nor 
old  could  withstand.  Under  him  Harriet  her- 


HAEEIET  BEECHEE  STOWE        93 

self  was  converted,  at  about  twelve  years  of 

age. 

Meantime  Harriet  was  going  to  school  and 
learning  the  common  branches.  What  was  of 
more  consequence,  she  was  learning  to  express 
the  ideas  generated  at  home.  From  the  first 
she  took  delight  in  writing  compositions;  and 
when  she  was  twelve  her  essay,  with  three 
others,  was  read  at  the  school  exhibition. 

The  subject  of  the  essay,  not  unnaturally, 
was,  "Can  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul  be 
proved  by  the  Light  of  Nature ! ' '  She  handled 
it  with  the  gravity — and  the  success — of  a  col- 
lege student.  Her  father  hearing  it,  "bright- 
ened and  looked  interested,"  and  at  the  close 
she  heard  him  ask,  "Who  wrote  that  composi- 
tion!" "Your  daughter,  sir,'  was  the  an- 
swer. Long  after  the  girl  had  grown  to  be  a 
woman  and  knew  something  of  fame,  she  could 
look  back  upon  this  scene  and  say,  "It  was  the 
proudest  moment  of  my  life.' 

For  the  next  six  years  Miss  Harriet  was  tor- 
mented by  great  mental  uneasiness.  Upon 
her  father's  removing  to  Boston,  she  went  to 
Hartford  to  the  school  conducted  there  by  her 
sister  Catherine.  For  the  term  of  her  resi- 
dence she  transferred  her  church  letter  to  Hart- 
ford. Now,  although  a  member  of  her  father's 
congregation,  the  girl  had  really  never  fath- 
omed his  doctrines,  or  "been  under  convic- 
tion"; she  was  living  contentedly  in  a  religion 
of  simple  faith  and  trust.  But  the  Hartford 
minister  gave  her  a  severe  check. 


94    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

"Harriet,"  lie  asked,  "do  you  feel  that 
if  the  universe  should  be  destroyed  (awful 
pause)  you  could  be  happy  with  God 
alone  I" 

The  girl  was  terrified  at  the  thought.  But 
she  stammered  out,  "Yes,  sir." 

"You  realize,  I  trust,"  went  on  the  pastor, 
"in  some  measure,  at  least,  the  deceitfulness  of 
your  heart  and  that  in  punishment  for  your 
sins  God  might  justly  leave  you  to  make  your- 
self as  miserable  as  you  have  made  yourself 
sinful?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  stammered  the  child  again.  And 
with  that  her  torture  began.  She  had  been 
taught  at  home  to  examine  herself  daily  for  any 
taint  of  sin.  From  now  on  she  did  so  with  re- 
doubled zeal. 

"My  whole  life  is  one  continued  struggle,' 
she  wrote  to  her  brother.  "I  do  nothing  right. 
I  yield  to  temptation  almost  as  soon  as  it  as- 
sails me.  ...  I  am  beset  behind  and  be- 
fore, and  my  sins  take  away  all  my  happiness.' 
While  at  home  one  summer  she  confessed  in  a 
letter  to  her  sister,  "I  don't  know  as  I  am  fit 
for  anything,  and  I  have  thought  that  I  could 
wish  to  die  young  .  .  .  rather  than  live,  as 
I  fear  I  do,  a  trouble  to  everyone.  You  don't 
know  how  perfectly  wretched  I  often  feel:  so 
useless,  so  weak,  so  destitute  of  all  energy. 
Mamma  often  tells  me  that  I  am  a  strange,  in- 
consistent being.  Sometimes  I  could  not  sleep 
and  have  groaned  and  cried  till  midnight,  while 
in  the  daytime  I  tried  to  appear  cheerful  and 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE        95 

succeeded  so  well  that  papa  reproved  me  for 
laughing  so  much." 

Even  while  this  despondency  was  deepest, 
however,  the  external  things  of  her  life  were 
calculated  to  dispel  it.  The  sister  Catherine 
and  the  brother  Edward  had  both  attained  a 
somewhat  more  genial  view  of  religion.  Their 
God  was  not  angry,  but  loving,  patient  and 
kind.  And  for  five  years  they  tried  in  speech 
and  writing  to  transmit  this  view  to  the  girl, 
so  bowed  down  by  the  consciousness  of  sin. 

Her  relations  in  Hartford,  too,  were  of  the 
pleasantest.  She  boarded  with  a  family  who 
had  in  turn  sent  a  daughter  to  board  with  her 
parents,  and  she  was  mothered  as  graciously 
as  she  could  have  been  at  home.  The  lessons 
in  school  fascinated  her — the  arithmetic,  the 
Latin  and  French,  the  painting;  and  she  must 
have  studied  faithfully,  for  she  assisted  the 
teacher,  in  charge  of  pupils  as  old  as  herself. 
She  formed  warm  attachments  with  girls  of  her 
own  age,  too,  and  joined  in  their  amusements. 
With  all,  it  would  be  an  obstinate  melancholy 
indeed  that  did  not  in  time  yield  to  such  treat- 
ment. In  fact,  before  long,  in  writing  to  her 
brother,  she  reveals  a  profound  change  in  her 
religious  state.  "I  have  never  been  so  happy 
as  this  summer  (1830).  I  began  it  in  more  suf- 
fering than  I  ever  before  have  felt,  but  there 
is  One  whom  I  daily  thank  for  all  that  suffering, 
since  I  hope  that  it  has  brought  me  at  last  to 
rest  entirely  in  Him.  ...  I  love  to  look  on 
Christ  as  my  teacher,  as  one  who,  knowing  the 


96    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

utmost  of  my  sinfulness,  .  .  .  can  still 
have  patience;  can  reform,  purify,  and  daily 
make  me  more  like  Himself." 

Finally,  after  all  her  spiritual  worries  were 
set  aside,  she  wrote  out  her  simple  creed. 
"Well,  there  is  a  heaven, — a  heaven, — a  world 
of  love,  and  love  after  all  is  the  life  blood,  the 
existence,  the  all  in  all  of  mind.' 

By  the  time  she  was  twenty,  then,  the  minis- 
ter's daughter,  after  long  disquiet,  had  avowed 
a  faith  and  a  working  principle  suitable  to  her 
inheritance,  and  worthy, — to  say  more — of  a 
large  hearted  woman.  The  love  of  God  and 
the  love  of  man,  as  prescribed  in  the  Christian 
religion,  she  believed  were  the  most  pleasant 
and  profitable  things  in  the  world.  So  far 
as  she  could,  she  meant  to  regulate  her  life  in 
accordance  with  that  belief. 

She  immediately  began  to  make  her  good 
works  tally  with  her  faith.  In  her  previous 
morbid  state  her  first  inquiry  on  meeting  people 
had  been,  "Have  they  such  and  such  a  char- 
acter, or  have  they  anything  that  might  possi- 
bly be  of  use  or  harm  to  me?'  But  now  she 
swung  right  about.  She  cultivated  a  general 
spirit  of  kindliness.  She  did  not  shrink  from 
people,  but  formed  incidental  acquaintances  at 
every  chance.  She  tells  of  going  to  a  little 
party  and  "zealously  talking  all  the  evening.' 
"The  kind  looks  and  words  and  smiles  I  call 
forth  by  looking  and  smiling  are  not  much  by 
themselves,  but  they  form  a  very  pretty  flower 
border  to  the  way  of  life,"  she  said.  "They 


HARRIET  BEECHEE  STOWE        97 

embellish  the  day  or  the  hour  as  it  passes,  and 
when  they  fade  they  only  do  just  what  you  ex- 
pected they  would. " 

In  her  writing,  too, — for  her  pen  was  always 
busy — she  embodied  this  same  Christian  ex- 
perience. Her  dream  of  the  period  was  to 
be  a  poet.  She  began  a  drama  whose  theme 
was  the  conversion,  after  long  searching,  of 
Cleon,  a  Greek  nobleman  at  the  court  of  Nero. 
She  filled  blank  book  after  blank  book  with  this 
ambitious  effort.  "It  filled  my  thoughts, 
sleeping  and  waking, "  she  tells  us. 

Doubtless  she  fancied  herself  another  So- 
phocles. But  one  day,  alas,  her  sister  Cath- 
erine pounced  down  upon  her  and  said  she 
must  not  "waste  her  time'  writing  poetry! 
So  her  religious  drama  had  to  lie  over  for  a 
while.  When  she  did  write  it  the  hero  would 
be  decidedly  of  a  different  color  and  a  different 
clime  from  the  Greek  lord  in  the  court  of 
Nero. 

In  1832  Dr.  Beecher  was  called  to  Cincinnati 
to  guide  the  fortunes  of  the  Lane  Theological 
Seminary, — a  college  that  promised  to  become 
the  feeder  of  the  pulpits  of  all  the  West.  The 
greater  part  of  his  family  must  needs  accom- 
pany him.  Catherine  and  Harriet  were  loath 
to  leave  their  school  in  Hartford.  But,  if  they 
could  not  preach,  they  could  teach;  and  teach- 
ing, they  believed,  was  scarcely  less  a  mission 
than  the  one  that  had  fallen  to  the  lot  of  their 
father.  They  soberly  determined  to  "turn 
over  the  West  by  means  of  model  schools  in  this, 


98    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

its  capital/  The  work  of  teaching  would 
never  be  rightly  done,  they  said,  until  it  passed 
into  female  hands.  For  men  had  not  the  tact 
or  talent  of  communicating  knowledge,  nor  the 
patience  and  gentleness  "  necessary  to  super- 
intend the  formation  of  character.  We  intend 
to  make  these  principles  understood  and  our- 
selves to  set  the  example  of  what  females  can 
do  in  this  way." 

Accordingly,  the  New  England  family  trans- 
planted itself  to  the  Ohio  river  town.  They 
settled  at  Walnut  Hills,  two  miles  from  the 
city,  in  a  beautiful  spot  so  healthful  that  it 
was  said  people  had  to  leave  there  to  be 
sick. 

With  towering  hopes  the  sisters  opened  their 
school,  the  "Female  Institute, "  to  "turn  over 
the  West. '  The  West  trustingly  presented  it- 
self to  be  turned.  But  Harriet,  in  fixing  upon 
her  "  mission, "  had  reckoned  without  her  own 
temperament;  very  likely  she  just  reasoned  in 
harmony  with  Catherine,  who  had  conceived 
and  was  engineering  the  project.  At  all  events 
school  teaching  afforded  her  but  a  very  shal- 
low and  uncertain  enjoyment.  She  was  too 
emotional,  had  too  many  ups  and  downs,  and 
could  not  bear  up  under  the  strict  routine. 
Her  health  drooped  in  spite  of  the  medicinal 
atmosphere  of  Walnut  Hills.  About  half  the 
time  she  was  "scarcely  alive,  and  a  greater 
part  of  the  rest,  the  slave  and  sport  of  morbid 
feeling  and  unreasonable  prejudice.' 

To  dissipate  this  mood  she  tried  various  di- 


HAERIET  BEECHER  STOWE        99 

versions.  In  1833,  she  made  an  excursion  into 
Kentucky  to  see  a  southern  plantation.  One 
who  was  with  her  said  she  appeared  not  to 
notice  anything  about  the  way  the  farm  was 
run,  but  sat  as  though  abstracted  in  thought. 
"When  the  negroes  did  funny  things  and  cut 
up  capers,  she  did  not  seem  to  pay  the  slightest 
attention  to  them."  Yet  the  young  teacher 
must  have  paid  rather  close  attention;  for 
nearly  twenty  years  later  the  identical  scenes 
were  to  be  reproduced  in  a  book. 

Miss  Beecher  also  taught  a  mission  Sunday 
,  school  for  negroes.  One  of  her  pupils  she 
quizzed  somewhat  to  the  following  effect: 

"Have  you  ever  heard  anything  about 
God?" 

The  child  only  grinned  in  bewilderment. 

"Do  you  know  who  made  you?' 

"Nobody,  as  I  knows  on,"  said  the  child. 
Her  eyes  twinkled,  and  she  added,  "I  'spect  I 
growed;  nobody  never  made  me.' 

This  incident,  also,  Miss  Beecher  stored 
away  in  her  memory  for  a  use  she  could  not 
anticipate. 

As  a  further  offset  to  her  teaching,  she  pre- 
pared a  school  geography,  she  contributed  pa- 
pers to  the  "Semi-Colon,"  a  club  of  literary 
people,  and  she  wrote,  from  time  to  time,  short 
stories,  one  of  which  won  a  prize  of  fifty  dol- 
lars. But  she  had  little  leisure  or  strength 
apart  from  her  regular  duties ;  and  no  amount 
of  travel,  mission  work,  or  writing,  however 
pleasant  in  themselves,  could  reconcile  her  to 


100    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

the  unloved  profession.  So,  when  her  sister 
failed  in  health  and  at  last  disbanded  the  school, 
she  gave  it  up  without  regret. 

She  was  now  free  to  take  up  some  occupa- 
tion more  to  her  taste;  and  one  occupation — 
romance,  was  already  inviting  her.  One  of  her 
dearest  girl  friends  had  married  Calvin  E. 
Stowe,  Professor  of  Biblical  Literature  in  Lane 
Seminary.  The  young  wife  died  within  a 
year.  What  followed  is  set  forth  by  Harriet's 
biographer  all  too  briefly.  "Her  death  left 
Professor  Stowe  a  childless  widower,  and  his 
forlorn  condition  greatly  excited  the  sympathy 
of  her  who  had  been  his  wife's  most  intimate 
friend.  It  was  easy  for  sympathy  to  ripen  into 
love,  and  after  a  short  engagement,  Harriet  E. 
Beecher  became  the  wife  of  Professor  Calvin  E. 
Stowe. " 

The  next  fourteen  years  in  Cincinnati  were 
for  the  young  wife  crowded  full  of  the  joys 
and  cares  of  family  life.  All  her  seven  chil- 
dren save  one  were  born  there ;  and  in  rearing 
them  she  found  perfect  content. 

"I  must  say  I  think  myself  a  fortunate 
woman  both  in  husband  and  children,'  she 
wrote  to  a  friend,  "My  children  I  would  not 
change  for  all  the  ease,  pleasure  and  leisure 
I  could  have  without  them.'  And  again,  in 
1848,  "I  am  thirty-seven  years  old!  I  am  glad 
of  it.  I  like  to  grow  old  and  have  six  children 
and  cares  endless.  I  wish  you  could  see  me 
with  my  flock  all  around  me.  They  sum  up  my 
cares,  and  were  they  gone,  I  should  ask  myself, 


HAKRIET  BEECHEft  STOWE       101 

What  now  remains  to  be  done?  They  are  my 
work  over  which  I  fear  and  tremble.' 

A  woman  so  engrossed  with  domestic  inter- 
ests might  seem  unlikely  ever  to  do  anything 
of  import  to  the  public.  Furthermore,  Pro- 
fessor Stowe,  though  rich  in  Biblical  learning, 
was  ill  provided  with  property  or  money ;  then 
his  college  some  years  paid  only  half  his  sal- 
ary; and  the  young  mother,  with  her  growing 
family,  was  pressed  into  household  drudgery. 

When  the  couple  went  to  housekeeping  they 
bought  their  entire  stock  of  china  for  kitchen 
and  parlor  for  eleven  dollars.  A  little  later, 
when  embarrassed  by  guests,  they  acquired  a 
tea  set  at  an  outlay  of  ten  dollars  more — and 
this  comprised  their  whole  outfit  for  many 
years.  But  in  fact  there  were  times  when  a 
full  set  of  dishes  would  have  been  a  mockery 
because  the  housewife  had  so  little  to  serve  in 
them.  In  1839,  for  example,  salt,  sugar,  po- 
tatoes, rice  and  coffee  went  up  to  famine  prices. 
The  Stowes  did  without  such  things  and  sub- 
sisted cheerfully  if  not  comfortably  on  a  diet 
of  bread  and  bacon. 

Without  money,  capable  servants  could  not 
be  had,  and  all  the  bothersome  trifles  of  child 
raising  were  heaped  upon  Mrs.  Stowe.  From 
early  morning  when  the  first  child  woke  to  be 
dressed  until  evening  when  the  last  one  had 
been  tucked  in  bed,  they  required  her  constant 
care.  This  was  sometimes  difficult  to  give, 
when,  at  the  same  time,  meals  had  to  be  cooked, 
the  house  swept  and  clothes  sewn  or  mended. 


102    HEKOINES  OF  MODEEN  PKOGBESS 

"  Of  such  details  as  these, "  she  says,  "are 
all  my  days  made  up.  Indeed,  my  dear,  I  am  a 
mere  drudge,  with  few  ideas  beyond  babies  and 
housekeeping." 

Two  or  three  circumstances,  it  is  true,  were 
all  this  time  tending  to  divert  her  interest  from 
things  personal  and  confirm  her  in  a  character 
other  than  that  of  housewife.  The  first  of 
these  was  slavery. 

The  system  of  slave  labor  in  the  southern 
half  of  the  United  States  had  begun  to  menace 
the  national  health.  The  South  generally  re- 
garded it  as  an  economic  necessity  to  the 
whites,  and  a  moral  benefit  to  the  negroes; 
while  many  in  the  North  retorted  that  indus- 
trially the  system  was  a  mere  makeshift  which 
grew  worse  every  year  and  that  ethically  it 
damaged  both  the  whites  and  those  whom  they 
held  in  bondage.  A  numerous  party  of  "abo- 
litionists" had  arisen  in  the  North  which  hotly 
demanded  that  the  slave  be  freed  at  once.  The 
southern  planters  were  of  course  aghast  at  a 
measure  which  would  in  a  moment  annihilate 
all  their  wealth,  and  they  cried  shame  at  the 
North  for  attempting  such  a  tyranny.  Since 
1800,  this  debate  had  been  waxing  yearly  more 
feverish.  Cincinnati,  being  just  on  the  border 
between  the  slave  states  and  the  free,  heard  it 
at  its  hottest. 

Now  the  girl  Harriet  Beecher  in  her  youth 
had  been  biased  against  slavery  by  the  senti- 
ments of  her  aunt  and  her  father.  As  a 
teacher,  again,  she  had  inspected  a  Kentucky 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE      103 

plantation,  and  had  led  a  mission  Sunday 
school  class,  where  the  ignorance  and  irre- 
ligion  of  the  blacks  outraged  her  northern  soul. 
And  during  her  married  life  the  old  convic- 
tions took  deeper  and  deeper  root. 

Lane  Theological  Seminary  was  a  center  of 
the  liveliest  controversy  and  naturally  Mrs. 
Stowe  heard  much  of  it.  The  friends  of  slav- 
ery in  Cincinnati  at  one  time  came  together  in 
a  mob,  wrecked  an  abolition  press,  and  threw 
it  into  the  river,  demolished  the  office,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  tear  down  the  houses  of  inoffensive 
blacks.  Henry  Beecher,  then  editing  another 
newspaper  which  stood  out  for  freedom,  car- 
ried pistols  which  he  grimly  said  were  "to  kill 
men  with."  And  Mrs.  Stowe,  writing  of  Mr. 
Birney,  the  abolition  editor,  said,  "I  hope  he 
will  stand  his  ground  and  assert  his  rights. 
The  office  is  fireproof  and  enclosed  by  high 
walls.  I  wish  he  would  man  it  with  armed 
men.  ...  If  I  were  a  man  I  would  go  for 
one,  and  take  good  care  of  at  least  one  win- 
dow." 

Certain  incidents  of  the  slave  trouble  came 
yet  more  closely  home  to  Mrs.  Stowe.  One 
day  a  negro  girl  servant  of  hers  ran  to  the 
house  in  fright;  her  old  master  was  in  town 
and  would  capture  her  and  force  her  into  serv- 
itude again;  but  Mr.  Stowe  and  Henry 
Beecher  carted  the  girl  away  at  night  through 
the  storm  to  a  station  of  the  underground  rail- 
way. Another  servant  described  to  Mrs. 
Stowe  the  horrors  of  plantation  life.  Her 


104    HEROINES  OF  MODEKN  PEOGBESS 

brother  Charles  wrote  from  New  Orleans  of 
an  overseer  who  showed  his  fist,  boasting  that 
it  was  "hard  as  iron  knocking  down  niggers, 
and  that  he  didn't  bother  about  sick  niggers, 
but  worked  his  in  with  the  crop."  Every- 
where she  saw  fugitive  slaves  recaptured  and 
dragged  back  in  irons  to  their  owners,  and  saw 
children  torn  from  their  mothers  and  "sold 
south.'  This  last  offended  her,  as  a  mother, 
most  of  all.  Her  eyes  were  opened  to  the  real 
enormity  of  the  custom.  "No  one  can  have 
the  system  of  slavery  brought  before  him  with- 
out an  irrepressible  desire  to  do  something," 
she  declared,  "and  what  is  there  to  be  done?" 
What  indeed  for  a  woman  with  six  children 
and  endless  household  cares? 

There  was  another  subject,  too,  that  lured 
her  ambition — that  of  writing.  After  her  first 
success  with  "Uncle  Lot,"  she  contributed  oc- 
casional articles  and  stories  to  the  papers. 
Her  husband  and  friends  urged  her  to  give 
more  time  to  literature, — more  especially  be- 
cause she  could  profit  financially  thereby.  In 
fact,  whenever  a  new  carpet  was  needed  or  the 
accounts  failed  to  balance  up,  she  did  write  an 
article  or  a  story  to  sell.  But  the  difficulties 
tinder  which  she  composed  were  prodigious. 
The  sister  Catherine,  for  example,  would  some- 
times take  dictation  in  the  Stowe  kitchen.  Of 
one  such  effort  she  gives  an  amusing  account: 

"Harriet  brushed  the  flour  off  her  apron  and 
sat  down  for  a  moment  in  a  muse.  Then  she 
dictated  as  follows: 


HAEBIET  BEECHER  STOWE       105 

"  'I  know  my  duty  to  my  children.  I  see  the 
hour  must  come.  You  must  take  them,  Henry ; 
they  are  my  last  earthly  comfort!' 

"  'Ma'am,  what  shall  I  do  with  these  egg 
shells?'  interrupted  Mina,  the  servant. 

"  'Put  them  in  the  pail  by  you,'  answered 
Harriet. 

"  'They  are  my  last  earthly  comfort,'  said 
I.  'What  next?' 

"  'You  must  take  them  away.  It  may  be — 
perhaps  it  must  be — that  I  shall  soon  follow, 
but  the  breaking  heart  of  a  wife  still  pleads, 
'A  little  longer,  a  little  longer.' 

"  'How  much  longer  must  the  ginger-bread 
stay  in?'  asked  Mina. 

"  'Five  minutes,'  said  Harriet. 

"  'A  little  longer,  a  little  longer,'  I  re- 
peated, in  a  dolorous  tone,  and  we  burst  out 
into  a  laugh." 

It  is  no  wonder  that,  with  these  hindrances, 
Mrs.  Stowe  wrote  only  to  keep  the  pot  boil- 
ing, nor  that,  when  forty  years  of  age,  she  had 
published  nothing  of  consequence.  Nor  is  it 
remarkable  that  she  had  not  bestirred  herself 
about  slavery  except  to  shield  her  own  servants 
and  print  a  few  sketches  in  her  brother's 
paper. 

On  the  one  hand  she  delighted  in  the  privi- 
leges of  motherhood;  on  the  other,  she  was  all 
too  often  forespent  with  its  burdens.  Then 
she  broke  down  in  health,  and  believed  she 
could  not  live  long.  In  that  mood  she  declared, 
"A  work  is  put  into  my  hands  which  I  must 


106    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PEOGRESS 

be  in  earnest  to  finish  shortly.  It  is  nothing 
great  or  brilliant  in  the  world's  eye;  it  lies  in 
one  small  family  circle,  of  which  I  am  called 
to  be  the  central  point." 

In  short,  she  was  truly  and  devotedly  a 
mother.  Whatever  other  ambitions  she  had 
she  subordinated  to  that.  The  religion  that  to 
her  meant  love,  and  the  love  that  was  "the  all 
in  all  of  mind, ' '  she  could  expend  almost  wholly 
upon  her  own  small  group  of  children.  In  the 
nature  of  things  there  was  no  reason  why  she 
should  not  round  out  her  life  within  the  com- 
pass of  motherhood,  and  call  it  a  very  good 
life,  too. 

N'ow,  however,  a  momentous  change  took 
place.  The  cholera  descended  upon  Cincinnati. 
Hundreds  died  every  day  and  there  was  scarce 
a  house  in  that  city  but  paid  toll  to  the  plague. 
Mr.  Stowe  was  from  home,  and  the  mother 
alone  watched  her  flock  with  sharpening  ap- 
prehensions. Then  the  child  Charley,  her 
youngest  and  dearest,  sickened.  A  few  days 
she  struggled  for  his  life.  He  lingered  a  brief 
while  without  hope.  Then  he  died. 

This  was  the  first  death  in  Mrs.  Stowe 's 
family.  She  grieved  as  though  no  woman  but 
she  had  suffered  bereavement.  She  knew  now 
what  loss  was.  Her  mother's  privilege  had 
been  abrogated;  her  mother's  cares  made  all 
for  naught.  Hence  her  narrow  contentment 
with  her  family,  and  her  comparative  apathy 
toward  the  sorrows  of  the  world  at  large 
were  suddenly  shattered.  Before  her  eyes 


HAREIET  BEECHEE  STOWE      107 

unrolled  the  record  of  griefs  occasioned  by 
slavery — the  fugitives  arrested,  the  weak 
and  delinquent  whipped,  the  mothers  bereft 
of  their  children.  She  saw  that  these  in- 
cidents reproduced  on  a  large  scale  her  own 
experience;  that  many  slave  mothers  endured 
many  like  bereavements,  not  at  the  hand  of 
death,  but  at  that  of  her  own  race.  "It  was 
my  only  prayer  to  God,"  she  says,  "that  such 
anguish  might  not  be  suffered  in  vain.  .  .  . 
I  felt  that  I  could  never  be  consoled  for  it,  un- 
less this  crushing  of  my  own  heart  might  en- 
able me  to  work  out  some  great  good  to 
others."  Thus  in  bitter  sorrow  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe  was  braced  for  a  new  essay  in 
life. 

About  this  time  Mr.  Stowe  accepted  a  pro- 
fessorship in  Bowdoin  College.  The  family 
moved  to  the  Maine  town.  There,  with  a  larger 
salary,  the  hardships  they  had  borne  for  seven- 
teen years  were  somewhat  lightened.  The 
mother  at  last  had  a  little  leisure  to  think  and 
to  write.  And  the  subject  for  her  exertions 
was  already  over-ripe. 

The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  had  just  been 
passed.  This  not  only  gave  Southern  owners 
the  right  to  pursue  their  escaped  slaves  in  the 
free  states,  but  forced  the  people  of  those 
states  to  assist  in  the  business.  The  law  was 
interpreted  so  that  a  claimant  need  not  prove 
his  unconditional  ownership.  Negroes  who 
had  long  been  legally  free  and  had  become  re- 
spectable, self-supporting  citizens,  with  fami- 


108    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

lies,  could  be  seized.  The  outrage,  in  some 
places,  equaled  the  scene  of  the  original  ab- 
duction in  Africa.  The  hunted  negroes,  such 
as  were  not  taken  at  the  first  raid,  were  flee- 
ing by  night  from  all  the  Northern  states  like 
mice  rooted  out  of  their  warrens.  The  con- 
science of  the  North  revolted  at  the  atrocity. 
Boston,  that  had  been  one  of  the  most  hospita- 
ble refuges  of  the  black  men,  now  became  the 
chief  place  of  their  torment. 

Mrs.  Stowe  in  her  Maine  home  heard  the  de- 
tails from  a  brother  and  his  wife  residing  in 
Boston.  "To  me  it  is  incredible,  amazing, 
mournful,'  she  cried.  "I  feel  as  if  I  should 
be  willing  to  sink  with  it,  were  all  this  sin  and 
misery  to  sink  into  the  sea.'  "My  heart  was 
bursting  .  .  .  , "  so  she  wrote  later  to  a  son 
who  was  then  an  infant,  "and  praying  God  to 
let  me  do  a  little  and  to  cause  my  cry  for  the 
slaves  to  be  heard.  I  remember  many  a  night 
weeping  over  you  as  you  lay  sleeping  beside 
me,  and  I  thought  of  the  slave  mothers  whose 
babies  were  torn  from  them.' 

Then  one  day  the  sister-in-law  in  Boston 
wrote,  "Now,  Hattie,  if  I  could  use  a  pen  as 
you  can,  I  would  write  something  that  would 
make  this  whole  nation  feel  what  an  accursed 
thing  slavery  is. ' 

On  reading  the  letter  Mrs.  Stowe  rose  from 
her  chair,  crushed  the  sheets  in  her  hand  and 
exclaimed,  "God  helping  me,  I  will  write  some- 
thing. I  will  if  I  live.' 

Then  one  Sunday  at  communion  service  in 


HAEEIET  BEECHEE  STOWE      109 

the  college  church,  she  forgot  the  scenes  around 
her  and  vividly  on  her  mind  there  flashed  the 
picture  of  a  persecuted  negro  dying — in  the 
Christian  faith.  That  afternoon  she  locked 
her  door  and  wrote  out  the  incident  as  she  had 
seen  it.  As  her  custom  was,  she  read  the 
story  to  her  family.  The  children  were  over- 
come; and  one  of  them  through  his  tears, 
sobbed  out,  "Oh,  mamma,  slavery  is  the  most 
cruel  thing  in  the  world  I" 

The  title  of  this  little  story  was  "The  Death 
of  Uncle  Tom." 

Soon  after,  at  the  suggestion  of  her  husband, 
she  decided  to  write  for  the  National  Era,  I 
an  abolition  paper  in  Washington,  a  continued  / 
story  of  which  the  climax  should  be  "The 
Death  of  Uncle  Tom."  The  first  chapter  was 
published  June  5th,  1851;  the  last,  April  1st, 
1852.  "The  story  is  to  show  how  Jesus  Christ, 
who  liveth  and  was  dead,  and  now  is  alive  and 
forevermore,  has  still  a  mother's  love  for  the 
poor  and  lowly,  and  that  no  man  can  sink  so 
low  but  that  Jesus  Christ  will  stoop  to  take  his 
hand." 

The  title  of  this  completed  novel  was, 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  or  Life  among  the 
Lowly. ' ' 

Before  the  last  chapter  of  the  serial  appeared, 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  came  off  the  press  in 
book  form.  The  author  reasoned  that  the  un- 
popular subject  and  the  name  of  a  woman  on 
the  title  page  would  probably  preclude  a  large 
sale.  Mr.  Stowe,  with  all  his  personal  admira- 


110    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

tion  for  the  story,  thought  himself  sanguine 
when  he  hoped  the  proceeds  would  buy  his  wife 
a  new  silk  dress. 

What  was  their  amazement,  then,  when  three 
thousand  copies  were  sold  the  very  first  day! 
Eight  presses,  running  day  and  night,  could 
not  keep  pace  with  the  demand.  Within  a 
year  three  hundred  thousand  copies  had  been 
sold  in  this  country  alone;  and  these  figures 
were  more  than  trebled  in  England  and  were 
rivaled  in  France  and  Germany.  The  royal- 
ties of  the  first  four  months  not  only  enriched 
the  author  with  a  new  silk  gown,  but  left  her 
the  sum  of  $10,000  besides.  The  book  was 
apparently  read  by  almost  every  one  who 
could  spell  out  the  words,  and  it  exploded 
on  the  world  a  sensation  which  has  prob- 
ably never  been  equaled  anywhere  in  literary 
annals. 

From  fhftSpnffr  arose  a  hurricane  of  denial 
and  abuse.  The  daily  papers  featured  column 
after  column  of  minute  criticism  which 
seemed  to  leave  the  book  in  tatters;  its  facts 
were  false,  its  art  contemptible,  its  moral 
slanderous  and  anti-Christian.  Articles,  sto- 
ries and  books  streamed  from  the  press  to 
celebrate  the  brighter  side  of  slavery.  Most 
of  them  lay  dead  on  the  market,  however;  of 
one  a  critic  cuttingly  said,  "The  editor  might 
have  saved  himself  being  writ  down  an  ass  by 
the  public  if  he  had  withheld  his  nonsense.' 
To  Mrs.  Stowe  personally  there  poured  in 
thousands  of  angry  and  abusive  letters. 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE      111 

Friends  addressing  her  from  some  parts  of 
the  South  dared  not  write  her  name  on  the 
outside  of  their  missives. 

In  the  North  a  large  element  condemned  the 
book  no  less  severely.  Those  who  thought 
slavery  just,  or  who  feared  civil  strife, — in 
general  those  who  had  contended  against  the 
abolitionists — left  all  their  former  antipathies 
to  rail  at  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe. 

On  the  whole,  however,  the  .North  accepted 
" Uncle  Tom's  Cabin'  as  a  fair  indictment  of 
the  national  sin,  and  as  a  sermon  to  them  on 
their  part  in  it.  The  author  who  had  lost  her 
child  had  written  to  them  of  slave  mothers  and 
of  sundered  homes;  written  with  the  emotion 
of  a  mother  who  knows  her  children  are  being 
scarred  by  the  driver's  whip;  and  written  so 
vividly  that  her  readers  felt  the  bitterness  of 
it  all  as  keenly  as  she.  The  North  realized 
the  terribleness  of  slavery  as  never  before;  in- 
deed they  saw  it  worse  than  it  was,  for  the 
book,  as  Southerners  said,  did  not  include  the 
whole  picture.  The  poet  Whittier  exclaimed, 
1 1  What  a  glorious  work  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe 
has  wrought.  Thanks  for  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law !  Better  would  it  be  for  slavery  if  that  law 
had  never  been  enacted ;  for  it  gave  occasion  for 
'Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.'  "  This  was  true.  For 
the  book  made  it  forever  impossible  that  the 
law  should  be  enforced;  and  escaped  slaves 
were  smuggled  into  Canada  in  greater  and 
greater  numbers.  A  statesman  predicted  that 
the  book  would  convert  two  million  people  to 


112    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

the  abolition  point  of  view.  How  nearly  that 
is  true  cannot  be  known.  At  any  rate  it  fixed 
the  North  more  firmly  in  hostility  to  the  slave 
business,  and  strongly  reinforced  the  side  of 
freedom;  and  it  hastened,  perhaps  by  years, 
the  "  irrepressible  conflict "  that  was  already 
threatening. 

Abroad,  " Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  was  read  al- 
most as  much  as  at  home.  Among  the  poor 
of  France  it  revived  the  study  of  the  Bible,  and 

'•H'Nijili,          "—••*•» 

led  them,  it  was  said,  to  Christianity.  It 
doubtless  did  no  less  among  the  forty  races 
into  whose  languages  it  was  soon  translated. 
Of  even  more  consequence  was  the  effect  in 
England.  The  sympathies  of  that  country  for 
economic  reasons  had  always  wavered  between 
the  North  and  the  South.  Now  the_m_oral  issue 
was  clearly  defined,  and  jmti-slavery  sentiment 
ran  high.  Six  "thousand  English  women  of 
eveTy^Fank  set  their  signatures,  in  twenty-six 
volumes,  to  an  "affectionate  and  Christian  ad- 
dress to  the  women  of  America, ' '  which  begged 
that  slavery  and  its  horrors  be  done  away  with 
immediately. 

The  author  of  so  mighty  a  book  would  not 
herself  remain  in  obscurity.  Mrs.  Stowe  was 
lionized  both  at  home  and  abroad.  The  name 
of  the  poor  professor's  wife  was  suddenly  on 
all  tongues;  her  every  word  was  listened  for 
with  earnest  attention.  In  Europe  she  formed 
warm  friendships  with  Mrs.  Browning,  George 
Eliot  and  many  other  distinguished  literary 
people,  and  receptions  awaited  her  from  Land's 


HABRIET  BEECHEK  STOWE       113 

End  to  Orkney.  This  was  surely  enough  fame 
for  one  woman. 

Fame,  of  course,  was  not  a  new  experience 
in  the  Beecher  family.  Charles,  as  pastor  and 
writer,  had  received  recognition;  Edward,  for 
many  years  president  of  Illinois  College,  and 
Catherine,  had  already  attained  prominence  as 
educators;  while  the  powerful  preaching  of 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  flooding  New  York, 
and  thence  all  the  nation,  with  a  gospel  of 
sweet  and  far-reaching  optimism.  Like  her 
brothers,  Mrs.  Stowe  did  not  allow  fame  to 
turn  her  head.  To  be  sure  she  enjoyed  it  in  her 
quiet  way,  but  she  took  all  the  encomiums  with 
a  self -amused  wink,  as  much  as  to  say,  "Look 
what  they're  doing  to  poor  little  me!"  As  for 
personal  vanity, — shortly  after  the  publication 
of  "Uncle  Tom,"  she  described  herself  thus: 
* '  I  am  a  little  bit  of  a  woman, — somewhat  more 
than  forty,  just  as  thin  and  dry  as  a  pinch  of 
snuff;  not  very  much  to  look  at  in  my  best 
days,  and  looking  like  a  used-up  article  now.' 

In  fact,  since  fame  was  not  what  she  had 
written  for,  it  did  not  dizzy  her  when  it  came. 
She  had  written  because  she  had  to;  because 
of  her  experience,  and  her  religion  and  the 
maternal  affection  that  had  been  robbed  of  its 
object.  These  were  not  yet  spent,  nor  was  the 
wrong  that  had  given  them  occasion  to  speak. 
Slavery  was  not  yet  abolished.  And  Mrs. 
Stowe  used  her  fame  only  as  a  vantage  ground 
from  which  to  prosecute  her  work. 

From  now  on  till  her  death  in  1896,  Mrs. 


114    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGEESS 

Stowe  brought  out  a  book  nearly  every  year. 
The  second,  "Dred,"  returned  to  the  negro  ques- 
tion, and  many  critics  pronounced  it  superior 
to  " Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  In  the  later  books 
she  delineated  New  England  life;  and  "The 
Minister's  Wooing"  was  by  some  rated  as  the 
truest,  if  not  the  freshest,  of  all  her  works. 
She  might  have  grown  wealthy  had  she  not 
been  so  generous.  Her  renown  literally  filled 
all  the  earth,  until  Holmes  could  justly  say: 

If  every  tongue  that  speaks  her  praise 
For  whom  I  shape  my  tinkling  phrase 
Were  summoned  to  the  table, 
The  vocal  chorus  that  would  meet 
Of  mingling  accents  harsh  or  sweet, 
From  every  land  and  tribe,  would  beat 
The  polyglots  of  Babel. 

These  later  books,  while  very  good  art,  were 
flung  to  the  world  almost  as  much  from  inner 
necessity  as  her  first.  "The  Minister's  Woo- 
ing" "taught  the  kinship  of  the  love,  of  man 
below  and  God  above.'  The  woman's  interest 
in  bereaved  humanity,  and  her  compassion  for 
it,  and  her  intense  faith  that  Christian  love 
could  compensate  for  all,  still  spoke  out.  And 
it  is  characteristic  of  Mrs.  Stowe  that  this 
literary  portrayal  and  preaching  did  not  wholly 
release  her  from  the  sense  of  duty  undone. 
She  had  been  a  woman  of  action  many  years 
before  she  became  a  writer,  and  the  instinct 
was  still  strong  to  do  something  helpful  with 


HAEEIET  BEECHEE  STOWE      115 

her  own  hands.  The  most  interesting  side  of 
her  later  life  is  the  way  she  wrought  out  in 
practice  the  gospel  she  had  preached. 

In  1852,  she  met  an  old  negro  woman  who 
was  begging  money  to  ransom  her  two  slave 
children.  Moved  by  the  story  Mrs.  Stowe  said, 
"If  I  can't  raise  the  money  otherwise,  I  will 
pay  it  myself."  Though  she  did  raise  the 
money  that  time,  the  appeals  that  followed 
were  not  always  answered  by  the  same  method. 
One  deaf  old  negress  told  of  her  five  sons  in 
bondage  for  whom  she  must  lament  all  day  on 
Sunday,  because  she  did  not  work  and  could 
not  hear  preaching.  "I  shall  search  out  and 
redeem  those  children,"  Mrs.  Stowe  exclaimed. 
"  Every  sorrow  I  have,  every  lesson  on  the 
sacredness  of  family  love,  makes  me  more  de- 
termined to  resist  to  the  last  this  dreadful  evil 
that  makes  so  many  mothers  so  much  deeper 
mourners  than  I  ever  can  be.'  So  for  ten 
years  preceding  the  war  Mrs.  Stowe  used  her 
money  and  influence  in  obtaining  freedom,  edu- 
cation and  comforts  for  the  slave  mothers  and 
their  children. 

During  the  Civil  War  a  yet  heavier  sacrifice 
was  required  of  her.  At  President  Lincoln's 
first  call,  her  son  Fred  volunteered  for  the 
army.  She  tried  to  dissuade  him.  But  he 
cried,  "I  should  be  ashamed  to  look  my  fel- 
low men  in  the  face  if  I  did  not  enlist.  People 
shall  never  say,  ' Harriet  Beecher's  Stowe 's 
son  is  a  coward.'  She  bravely  consented; 
for  she  believed  it  to  be  God's  will  that  the 


116    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

nation  from  end  to  end  should  suffer  for  the 
sin  it  had  done,  and  that  the  slave  mothers, 
"  whose  tears  nobody  regarded,  should  have 
with  them  a  great  company  of  weepers,  North 
and  South.'  She  sent  her  son  to  the  war. 
He  was  wounded  at  Gettysburg,  came  home, 
and  never  again  regained  his  health.  Mrs. 
Stowe  had  joined  the  army  of  weepers  against 
her  will,  when  her  first  son  died  in  Cincinnati. 
She  now  joined  it  again  of  her  own  choice,  that 
she  might  do  her  full  share  in  atoning  for  her 
country's  fault. 

Her  chief  public  act  during  the  war  was  her 
reply  to  the  ' '  Christian  address ' '  of  the  women 
of  England.  The  English  had  everything  to 
gain  economically  from  peace,  if  not  from  in- 
dependence in  the  cotton  states.  Lately  they 
had  been  led  to  believe  that  the  North  was  war- 
ring to  oppress  the  South  merely,  and  not  to 
liberate  the  slaves;  they  were  therefore  in- 
clined to  side  with  the  South  and  to  abandon 
their  neutral  policy.  Mrs.  Stowe  wrote  a  pas- 
sionate address  which  set  matters  in  a  true 
light.  It  covered  the  English  people  with 
shame.  They  met  spontaneously  in  towns  all 
over  the  kingdom  to  pass  resolutions  in  favor 
of  the  Union.  The  press  took  the  matter  up, 
and  parliament,  to  the  joy  of  the  North,  was 
affected  favorably.  Thus  Mrs.  Stowe  helped 
to  avert  English  interference  at  a  time  when 
such  interference  might  have  meant  the  tri- 
umph of  secession. 

After  the  war,  Mrs.  Stowe  lived  much  in 


HAEEIET  BEECHEE  STOWE      117 

the  South.  In  Florida  she  owned  first  a  cotton 
plantation,  then  an  orange  grove.  In  these  en- 
terprises again,  her  object  was  unworldly;  and 
in  fact,  in  a  worldly  sense  they  failed.  Her 
object  was,  first,  to  hire  emancipated  negroes 
as  free  laborers  and,  second,  to  make  a  begin- 
ning of  schools  and  churches  among  them.  "1 
long  to  be  at  this  work,"  she  said,  "and  cannot 
think  of  it  without  my  heart  burning  within  me. 
Still  I  leave  all  with  my  God,  and  only  hope  He 
will  open  the  way  for  me  to  do  all  that  I  want 
to  for  this  poor  people.'  It  is  plain  that  she 
longed  only  to  finish  the  work  she  had  begun 
with  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin," — to  free  slaves  and 
then  to  discipline  the  freedmen  as  worthy  citi- 
zens and  Christians. 

She  built  with  her  own  money  a  schoolhouse 
and  church  at  Mandarin,  Florida.  Here  she 
taught  a  Sunday  school  class  of  colored  chil- 
dren, and  Professor  Stowe  preached.  And  here 
they  remained  for  the  greater  part  of  twenty 
years,  acting  as  ministers  to  the  people,  and  in 
general  doing  any  friendly  service  that  came 
in  their  way.  In  their  old  age  they  had  the 
comfort  of  knowing  that  the  colored  men  were 
rapidly  progressing.  The  former  slaves  were 
now  self-supporting  and  self-respecting;  they 
observed  the  law  and  they  gloried  in  religion. 
"Let  us  never  doubt,'  wrote  Mrs.  Stowe, 
"everything  that  ought  to  happen  is  going  to 
happen." 

Of  course,  compared  to  the  influence  of  her 
books,  these  personal  ministrations  were  triv- 


118    HEKOINES  OF  MODEKN  PROGRESS 

ial.  But  it  is  the  more  honor  to  her  that,  hav- 
ing called  into  existence  the  imaginary  Uncle 
Tom,  she  considered  her  mission  still  unful- 
filled and  strove  by  direct  contact  to  upraise 
the  Uncle  Tom  of  real  life.  It  affirmed  once 
for  all  the  character  and  purpose  of  her  writ- 
ling.  She  did  not  work  for  art's  sake,  nor  to 
cater  to  public  amusement;  nor  did  she  write 
with  those  aims.  She  wrote  as  she  worked,- 
to  express  her  religion,  and  her  human  sym- 
pathy and  love. 

Mrs.  Stowe's  claim  to  a  place  in  the  history 
of  modern  progress  rests  upon  her  labors 
against  slavery.  It  may  seem  curious  that  of 
all  women  she  did  the  most,  when  until  after 
her  fortieth  year  she  was  so  little  stirred  by  the 
cause.  The  explanation  is  that,  even  in  its 
widest  sweep,  her  work  was  religious  and  per- 
sonal. All  those  forty  years  she  had  been  un- 
consciously preparing  in  private  for  the  dra- 
matic blow  that  at  last  staggered  the  nation. 
She  had  been  trained  up  as  a  minister's  child; 
in  young  maidenhood  she  had  found  a  gospel  of 
love  and  kindness ;  and  as  a  wife  and  mother — 
rearing  her  offspring  and  seeing  them  die — she 
had  learned  by  dear  experience  the  quality  of 
the  grief  her  country  was  inflicting  upon  a 
whole  unfortunate  race.  When  that  grief  in 
due  time  was  brought. home  to  her  with  full 
force,  her  training,  her  religion,  her  family  af- 
fection— all  personal  as  they  were — could  not 
help  speaking  vehemently  for  the  race. 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE      119 

One  who  knew  Mrs.  Stowe  said  she  summed 
up  her  own  character  in  the  words,  "I  love 
you/  And  that  love  had  a  purpose.  By  it 
everything  that  was  "going  to  happen"  was 
helped  to  happen  at  the  earliest  possible  mo- 
ment. 


FLOEENCE  NIGHTINGALE 

FLOEENCE  NIGHTINGALE,  when  a 
child,  had  a  large  family  of  dolls.  One 
day  when  she  was  entertaining  them  at  a  gar- 
den party  on  her  father's  estate  in  Derbyshire, 
her  dog  seized  one  in  his  teeth  and  scur- 
ried away  for  a  romp  with  it.  Florence  res- 
cued the  doll  a  few  minutes  later.  Sawdust 
was  pouring  out  of  a  large  rip  in  the  side. 
But  she  did  not  mourn  over  the  mishap;  nor 
did  she  throw  the  tattered  playmate  away 
and  ask  her  parents  for  another  to  fill  its 
place.  She  stuffed  fresh  sawdust  into  the 
doll,  until  it  was  as  plump  as  ever,  and  then 
bound  her  handkerchief  neatly  over  the  hole. 
And  thereafter  this  doll,  from  all  the  large 
family,  was  the  girl's  favorite. 

This  was  in  Derbyshire,  England,  a  hundred 
years  ago.  The  shire  was  then  a  picturesque 
country  devoted  mainly  to  grazing.  The 
shepherd  population,  in  their  thatch-roofed 
cottages,  lived  quiet  and  often  solitary  lives. 
Their  condition  varied  from  well-off  to  poor, — 
there  were  a  good  many  poor — and,  with  the 
minimum  education,  they  were  generally  much 
simpler  than  country  folk  of  our  own  day. 

In  the  midst  of  such  a  countryside  was  born 
Florence  Nightingale,  in  the  year  1820.  She 
was  not  precisely  in  it,  however,  but  above  it. 

Her  father,  William  Shore  Nightingale,  was  a 

120 


FLOEENCE  NIGHTINGALE         121 

wealthy  land  owner  and  a  country  gentleman 
of  the  old  style,  known  as  ' l  squire. '  His  sum- 
mer residence  at  Lea  Hurst  comprised  a  fine 
manorial  house  and  estate,  in  which  money  had 
been  spent  without  stint  to  produce  comfort 
and  elegance.  Both  parents,  moreover,  were 
cultured  and  refined.  So,  Florence  Nightin- 
gale was  born  into  riches  and'position,  and  re- 
finement. She  was  born  a  lady,  in  fact. 
Every  avenue  to  social  eminence  was  open  to 
her.  And  even  the  simplicity  and  poverty 
round  about  might  easily  have  set  her  up  in  a 
narrow  class  pride,  and  made  her  all  the  more 
a  "lady." 

She  seems  to  have  profited  well  by  her  herit- 
age in  the  way  of  personal  comforts  and  edu- 
cation. As  a  very  young  girl  she  took  her 
pleasures  with  dolls,  in  the  manner  described 
above.  A  little  later  she  learned  to  ride  horse- 
back, and  galloped  daily  over  the  downs  in 
company  with  her  father,  or  her  father's 
friend,  the  vicar.  Her  education  in  modern 
languages  went  on,  meanwhile,  under  the 
charge  of  a  governess.  Her  father  instructed 
her  in  mathematics  and  classic  literature;  and 
from  her  mother  she  learned  to  play,  to  draw 
and  to  sew.  But  this  was  the  conventional 
training  for  a  squire's  daughter  of  the  period. 
And  if  Florence  Nightingale  had  been  limited 
to  it,  she  might  never  have  been  heard  of,  any 
more  than  a  thousand  other  squire's  daughters 
who  werf*  o-^-— g  Up  jn  England  at  the 
time. 


HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

Squire  Nightingale  and  his  wife  were  people 
of  singularly  broad,  sympathetic  minds.  Rid- 
ing over  the  downs  one  day,  the  father  noticed 
a  peculiar  flower  blossoming  among  the  weeds. 
He  dismounted,  with  the  girl,  to  examine  it. 
He  pronounced  it  a  species  very  rare  in  Derby- 
shire, and  suggested  that  Florence  transplant 
it  to  her  own  garden.  She  did  so,  and  by  care- 
ful tending  soon  had  a  bed  of  the  strange 
plants  growing  near  the  manor  house.  From 
this  incident  and  others  like  it,  the  girl  devel- 
oped a  curious  interest  in  all  kinds  of  plants 
that  were  having  a  hard  time  to  live.  In  her 
garden  at  home  she  had  raised  peonies,  pan- 
sies,  forgetmenots  and  mignonette.  These 
were  easily  grown,  and  they  flowered  as  beau- 
tifully as  the  girl  could  desire.  But  one  day 
her  father  saw  her  going  into  the  meadow  and 
followed  her.  She  stooped  by  a  bunch  of  cow- 
slips and  began  to  dig  up  the  weeds  that  choked 
its  growth.  Then  she  found  a  marigold  that 
had  been  bruised  by  a  passing  cart  wheel ;  this 
she  reset  in  a  safe  place  farther  from  the  road. 
Finally  she  uprooted  a  wild  lily  plant,  wrapped 
it  in  paper,  and  set  off  for  home  with  it.  The 
squire  saw  that  his  daughter  was  a  born  gar- 
dener, but  of  a  peculiar  stamp :  her  concern  was 
not  in  the  garden  so  much  as  in  the  flowers  that 
needed  a  garden's  protection.  That  trait 
pleased  the  squire,  and  he  did  everything  he 
could  to  foster  it. 

The  same  trait  revealed  itself  in  the  child's 
care  of  animals.  She  had  her  squirrels,  of 


FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE         123 

course,  and  her  pony  and  her  dog,  and  she 
never  tired  of  playing  with  them.  But  her 
keenest  interest  in  these  was  awakened  when 
they  met  with  an  accident.  At  least  one  may 
infer  as  much  from  one  incident. 

Florence  was  riding  home  with  the  vicar  to 
tea.  On  the  way  they  passed  a  herd  of  sheep, 
in  wild  commotion.  The  old  shepherd,  Eoger, 
could  do  nothing  to  control  them. 

" What  is  the  matter,  Eoger !"  called  the 
vicar,  "where  is  your  dog?" 

"The  boys  have  been  throwing  stones  at 
him,  sir,"  replied  the  shepherd.  "They  have 
broken  his  leg,  and  he  will  never  be  good  for 
anything  again.  I  shall  have  to  take  a  bit  of 
cord  and  put  an  end  to  his  misery." 

"Oh!'  cried  Florence,  who  overheard  the 
story.  "Poor  Cap!  Are  you  sure  his  leg  is 
broken!" 

"Yes,  miss,  it's  broke  sure  enough.  He 
hasn't  set  foot  to  the  ground  since,  and  no  one 
can't  go  nigh  him.  Best  put  him  out  of  his 
pains,  I  says." 

But  the  vicar  and  the  girl  knew  Cap.  He 
was  an  intelligent  and  useful  dog,  and  they 
were  sorry  to  think  of  his  dying.  Riding  on, 
they  stopped  at  the  cottage  where  he  lay. 
Florence  petted  the  cringing  beast  vhile  the 
clergyman  examined  his  injury.  "Is  it 
broken?'  she  called  anxiously. 

"No,"  said  the  vicar.  "No  bones  are 
broken.  There  is  no  reason  why  Cap  should 
not  recover;  all  he  needs  is  care  and  nursing." 


124    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

"What  shall  I  do  first?"  asked  the  girl 
quickly,  accepting  the  duty  as  hers. 

The  vicar — he  had  studied  medicine  in  his 
day — prescribed  a  hot  compress.  The  fire 
was  lighted,  and  the  kettle  put  over.  But  no 
cloth  was  to  be  found  until,  looking  all  about 
the  room,  Florence  saw  the  shepherd's  extra 
smock  hanging  on  the  wall. 

"This  will  do!"  she  cried.  "Mamma  will 
give  him  another." 

So  she  tore  the  smock  into  strips,  and  bathed 
the  dog's  limb  until  the  inflammation  was  gone. 
The  injury  healed,  and  the  dog  served  his 
master  many  a  year  afterward.  But  that  was 
not  the  only  result  of  the  incident,  nor  the 
main  one.  It  first  disclosed  to  the  girl  what 
her  natural  tastes  were,  and  determined  her 
to  follow  them. 

It  is  not  wise  to  emphasize  the  incident 
over  much,  however,  for  there  were  plenty  of 
others  that  would  turn  her  mind  in  the  same 
direction.  If  her  father  was  interested  in 
flowers,  he  was  more  interested  in  people. 
There  were  a  good  many  middle  class  and  poor 
around  him,  as  was  said,  and  he,  with  his 
wealth  and  culture,  took  their  welfare  to  heart. 
Often  he  flung  open  the  gates  of  his  estate  and 
gave  the  village  children  food  and  presents  and 
let  them  dance  on  his  lawn.  He  had  a  benevo- 
lent care,  too,  for  families  that  came  upon  hard 
times  due  to  sickness  or  the  failure  of  crops. 
To  these  he  sent  food  and  clothing  and  medi- 
cine; and  often  it  was  Florence  who  conveyed 


FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE         125 

the  gift,  riding  on  her  pony.  Thus  the  child, 
so  favored  personally  by  fortune,  grew  famil- 
iar with  the  wants  of  others  less  fortunate. 

Many  of  her  errands  were  done  in  company 
with  the  vicar.  He  spoke  words  of  cheer  to 
the  sick  and  bereaved,  advised  them  as  to  the 
use  of  the  foods  and  medicines  the  girl 
brought,  and  dropped  a  few  hints  about  nurs- 
ing and  hygiene.  So  the  girl  learned  how  to 
do  the  most  practical  good  to  people  in  need, 
how  to  lessen  suffering  not  alone  by  gifts  and 
personal  sympathy,  but  by  the  means  a  physi- 
cian uses.  She  was  daily  welcomed  in  some 
poor  cottage.  Slight,  graceful,  with  a  fine, 
oval,  delicate  face,  gray-blue  eyes,  and 
smoothly  parted  brown  hair,  she  must  have 
exercised  a  remarkable  charm  upon  the  sick 
rooms  she  entered.  She  read  to  the  patients, 
measured  out  their  medicine,  prepared  dainty 
foods,  and  turned  her  hand  to  any  useful  task. 
People  called  her  a  little  " Angel  of  Mercy." 
And  they  spoke  better  than  they  knew.  For 
in  these  visits  with  the  vicar  the  strongest 
bent  was  given  to  the  girl's  nature.  And  the 
name  bestowed  by  her  simple  admirers  was 
also  a  prophecy. 

As  Florence  grew  to  young  womanhood,  her 
character  as  the  daughter  of  an  opulent 
English  squire  continued  to  expand  in  a 
normal  way. 

She  still  rode  horseback,  in  a  habit  that 
swept  the  ground,  and  a  large  hat  trimmed 
with  ostrich  plumes;  or  performed  social 


126    HEBOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

duties  in  a  stylish  frock  with  full  skirts  and 
sleeves  and  a  collar  of  lace ;  or  visited  in  a  full 
plaited  jacket  with  a  belt  and  a  "coal  scuttle " 
bonnet.  She  "entered  society,'7  and  played  a 
conspicuous  part  in  the  parties,  dances  and 
other  country  gayeties.  Moreover,  she  went 
to  London  for  the  "season"  as  a  lady  of  her 
rank  must,  was  presented  to  Queen  Victoria, 
and  shone  among  the  best  in  court  circles. 
She  traveled  on  the  continent,  too,  explored  the 
galleries  of  Germany,  France  and  Italy,  and 
acquired  a  facile  speaking  knowledge  of  the 
languages  of  those  countries. 

From  all  this,  however,  her  interest  carried 
her  back  to  the  sick  and  the  poor  about  Lea 
Hurst  and  Embly.  She  still  ministered  to 
these,  and  with  such  growing  intelligence  that 
she  was  nothing  less  than  an  unpaid  country 
doctor.  At  seventeen,  too,  she  conducted  a 
Bible  class  at  Lea  Hurst  for  the  girls  em- 
ployed in  the  hosiery  mills.  In  short,  with  all 
her  education  and  social  success  she  could  not 
forget  the  dependent  people  around  her  child- 
hood home ;  and,  whatever  might  be  her  amuse- 
ment, it  was  her  earnest  vocation  to  make  the 
lives  of  those  people  easier  and  brighter. 

Then,  somewhere  in  this  period,  the  realiza- 
tion came  to  her  that  she  was  unfit  for  so  great 
a  task.  She  had  not  strength  to  do  so  much 
alone;  there  were  cases  of  sickness  where  she 
did  not  know  what  to  prescribe.  un- 

trained mothers  and  daughters  lire, 

who  helped  her,  were  too  dull  ard 


FLOEENCE  NIGHTINGALE         127 

to  carry  out  what  small  behests  she  gave. 
Such  facts  were  true  of  Lea  Hurst  and  Embly 
Park,  and  it  saddened  the  young  woman  to 
think  of  them.  But  then  she  discovered  that 
what  was  true  of  her  home  was  equally  true  of 
all  England. 

In  London  she  had  seen  the  slum  people 
poorer  and  sicker  than  they  ever  could  be  in 
rural  Derbyshire.  She  looked  about  to  see 
what  help  they  had,  corresponding  to  that  she 
had  volunteered  for  her  own  people;  and  she 
found,  precisely — nothing.  Or  worse  than 
nothing ! 

In  the  homes  the  most  barbaric  ignorance 
prevailed  as  to  the  simple  matters  of  ventila- 
tion, cleanliness,  light  and  food.  This  was  a 
great  shock  to  one  who  knew  that  every  woman 
is  a  nurse,  at  some  time  in  her  life  1 1  has  charge 
of  the  personal  health  of  somebody,"  and  ought 
to  know  the  essentials  of  every  day  sanitation 
and  nursing.  On  top  of  that  there  was  no  one 
to  go  about  and  dispense  free  riedicine  and  ad- 
vice as  she  had  done  at  home.  And,  as  the 
key  to  the  whole  tale  of  neglect  and  misery — 
there  was  no  place  where  competent  nurses 
could  be  trained. 

Many  of  those  sick  with  contagious  diseases 
were  gathered  into  great  public  hospitals  and 
there  tended  by  professional  nurses.  These 
inv"K/q°  Miss  Nightingale  thought,  ought  to 
be  ted  A  a  model  way;  and  the  treatment 
of  it  to  provide  a  model  training  for 

a   :  it   the   very   opposite    was   true. 


128    HEEOINES  OF  MODEKN  PROGRESS 

The  hospitals  of  London  were  as  dirty  and  un- 
sanitary as  the  slum  homes.  Nursing,  as  she 
says,  "was  largely  in  the  hands  of  the  coarsest 
type  of  women,  not  only  untrained,  but  callous 
in  feeling,'  and  often  of  low  character.  Peo- 
ple believed  "that  it  requires  nothing  but  a 
disappointment  in  love,  the  want  of  an  object, 
a  general  disgust  or  incapacity  for  other  things 
to  turn  a  woman  into  a  good  nurse.'  "This 
reminds  one  of  the  parish  where  a  stupid  old 
man  was  set  to  be  schoolmaster  because  he 
was  past  keeping  the  pigs." 

The  hospital  nurses  did,  in  fact,  keep  their 
patients  "like  pigs.'  And  therein  Florence 
Nightingale  perceived  the  root  of  all  the  sick 
misery  of  England.  And  she  determined — 
just  where  or  how  can  never  be  known — to  see 
what  could  be  done  to  reform  the  hospitals. 
That  was  to  be  her  life  work.  She  was  about 
twenty-one  years  old  when  she  definitely  set- 
tled upon  it. 

The  decision  required  courage.  Nursing 
was  a  base  profession,  not  much  above  that  of 
barmaid ;  and  Florence  Nightingale  was  a  lady 
born  and  a  lady  bred.  She  had  to  have  the 
confidence  that  she  could  preserve  herself  from 
contamination  while  she  elevated  the  profes- 
sion. And  it  was  a  prodigious  undertaking. 
But  she  was  not  without  inspiring  examples. 
She  laid  her  case  before  Elizabeth  Fry,  who 
had  renovated  the  prisons  of  Europe,  and  was, 
of  course,  encouraged  to  go  ahead.  Then  the 
Catholic  hospitals  on  the  Continent  were 


FLOEENCE  NIGHTINGALE        129 

sensibly  constructed  and  the  Sisters  of 
Mercy  in  charge  were  generally  capable 
women.  Yet  her  strongest  inducement  was 
not  these  examples,  but  her  knowledge  of  the 
shocking  need  for  intelligent  nursing.  It  was, 
above  all,  her  own  leaning  toward  that  humane 
occupation.  For  that  was  the  woman's 
natural  bent — she  who  had  healed  Cap,  and 
read  consolation  to  her  rheumatic  neighbors. 
She  did  not  lack  the  courage. 

So  for  thirteen  years  more  she  was  most  of 
the  time  under  the  roofs  of  hospitals.  She 
visited,  apparently,  every  such  institution  in 
England,  from  the  great  wards  of  London  to 
the  county  infirmaries;  all  the  hospitals  of 
Paris,  where  she  studied  with  the  Sisters  of 
Charity;  and  those  of  Berlin,  Brussels,  Kome, 
Constantinople  and  Alexandria;  and  the  war 
hospitals  of  the  French  and  Sardinians. 

Most  of  her  study  on  the  Continent  was  with 
the  Catholic  sisters,  who  were  so  far  ahead  of 
their  time.  Miss  Nightingale  well  knew,  how- 
ever, that  they  and  their  system  could  never 
be  transferred  to  Protestant  England.  If  she 
was  to  produce  nurses  in  England,  they  must 
be  Protestant  nurses.  Hence  when  she  dis- 
covered a  solitary  Lutheran  deaconess  hospi- 
tal at  Kaiserwerth  on  the  Rhine,  she  attached 
herself  to  it  for  serious  study.  There  she  was 
thoror-ghly  drilled  in  every  department  of 
nursing.  " Never,"  she  says,  "have  I  met 
with  a  higher  love  and  a  purer  devotion  than 
there. "  And  a  sister  nurse  said  of  her,  "She 


130    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

was  only  a  few  months  there,  but  they  so  long 
to  see  her  again.  Such  a  loving  and  lovely 
womanly  character,  hers  must  be;" 

From  Germany,  finally^  she  came  home,  and, 
after  nearly  twelve  years,  her  preparation  was 
finished.  Twelve  years  is  rather  a  long  period 
for  study,  modern  graduate  nurses  may  think. 
But  she  had  to  pick  up  the  science  in  little  bits, 
here  and  there,  and  the  hardest  part  was  not 
learning  the  facts,  but  separating  the  false 
from  the  true.  And  then,  even  for  a  twelve- 
year  student,  she  was  exceptionally  well  pre- 
pared— as  will  soon  appear. 

Miss  Nightingale  had  not  been  long  at  home 
when  an  occasion  came  to  apply  her  learning. 
A  hospital  for  poor,  broken  down  governesses 
in  London  was  in  straits.  The  management 
had  failed,  the  philanthropic  supporters  had 
withdrawn  their  funds,  and  the  home  was 
about  to  be  closed.  That  would  have  been  a 
great  calamity,  as  great  as  if  an  old  soldiers r 
home  were  on  short  notice  to  turn  all  its  board- 
ers out  of  doors.  In  this  crisis,  Miss  Nightin- 
gale was  called  to  be  superintendent  of  the 
Harley  Street  Home, 

Probably  here  was  forced  upon  the  young 
woman  the  real  test  of  her  life.  Heretofore 
she  had  been  a  student;  now  she  was  to  face 
realities.  The  question  now  was — would  she 
wo rk  in  hospitals,  would  she  give  her  life  to 
them?  "Was  she  willing  at  the  crucial  time  to 
relinquish  her  place  as  a  lady  and  actually  dwell 
among  the  poor  and  the  sick  to  serve  them? 


FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE        131 

Florence  Nightingale  was  willing.  She  took 
up  residence  on  Harley  Street  among  a  swarm 
of  ailing  and  despondent  women,  when  she 
might  have  been  attending  balls  at  Bucking- 
ham Palace.  She  gave  money.  She  encour- 
aged old  friends  and  new  to  subscribe.  With 
her  own  hands  she  swept  and  made  beds  and 
spooned  out  medicine  for  these  invalids  whom 
she  had  never  seen  and  for  whom  no  one  in 
the  world  cared  a  stiver.  It  was  an  obscure 
and  a  humble  assignment.  Few  but  her 
friends  knew  she  was  doing  it,  and  many  of 
them  disapproved.  But  her  work  finally 
showed  that  she  wanted  not  only  to  study  nurs- 
ing, but  to  nurse.  She  had  chosen  her  career 
and  she  was  fairly  launched  upon  it. 

She  toiled  so  hard  at  Harley  Street  that  she 
herself  fell  ill,  and  retired  to  her  home  for  a 
rest.  It  was  there,  while  still  pondering  the 
problems  of  her  quiet  London  task,  that  she 
was  suddenly  summoned  to  another  task,  as 
spectacular  and  momentous  as  had  ever  been 
thrown  into  the  hands  of  a  woman. 

The  Crimean  war  was  in  progress,  France 
and  England  being  allied  to  defend  Turkey 
against  Eussian  aggression.  The  British 
army  had  sailed  to  a  strange  climate  with 
shamefully  poor  commissary  and  medical 
st  weather  was  stormy  and  the  sol- 

di ttle  shelter  against  it.     Said  a  cor- 

r<  of  the  London  Times,  "It  is  now 

p  n,  the  skies  are  black  as  ink,  the 

\v  7ling  over  the  staggering  tents,  the 


132    HEBOINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

trenches  are  turned  into  dykes;  in  the  tents 
the  water  is  sometimes  a  foot  deep;  our  men 
have  not  either  warm  or  waterproof  clothing; 
they  are  out  for  twelve  hours  at  a  time  in  the 
trenches" — and  so  on  without  end. 

Plenty  of  food  and  clothing  had  been 
shipped  from  England,  but  they  never  reached 
their  destination.  Some  vessels  were  delayed; 
in  some  the  stores  were  packed  at  the  bottom 
of  the  hold  and  could  not  be  raised ;  some  hove 
in  with  the  wrong  goods  at  the  wrong  port — 
and,  on  one,  the  consignment  of  boots  proved 
to  be  all  for  the  left  foot !  But  the  most  crim- 
inal point  of  mismanagement  was  this:  food, 
clothing1  and  medicine  might  be  stored  in  a 
warehouse  within  easy  reach  of  the  army;  but 
the  official  with  authority  to  deal  them  out 
would  be  absent,  and,  so  stringent  were  the 
army  rules  that  no  one  dared  so  much  as 
point  at  them!  The  rigid  system  was  infi- 
nitely worse  than  no  system.  And  the  soldiers 
were  starving  in  the  midst  of  plenty,  and 
freezing  under  the  shadow  of  mountains  of 
good  woolen  clothing. 

Now,  to  come  at  once  to  the  worst,  imagine 
these  conditions  transferred  to  the  military 
hospitals.  In  the  great  Barrack  Hospital  a 
Scutari  lay  two  thousand  sorely  wounded  men, 
and  hundreds  more  were  coming  in  every  day. 
The  wards  were  crowded  to  twice  their  capac- 
ity— the  sick  lay  side  by  side  on  mattresses 
that  touched  each  other.  The  floors  and  walls 
and  ceilings  were  wet  and  filthy.  There  was 


FLOEENCE  NIGHTINGALE        133 

no  ventilation.  Eats  and  vermin  swarmed 
everywhere.  The  men  lay  "in  their  uniforms, 
stiff  with  gore  and  covered  with  filth  to  a  de- 
gree and  of  a  kind  no  one  could  write  about." 
It  was  a  "  dreadful  den  of  dirt,  pestilence  and 
death. » 

This  might  have  been  remedied  by  an  ade- 
quate medical  staff.  But  the  doctors  were 
few.  They  were  hampered  in  their  profes- 
sional duties  by  administrative  ones.  And 
they  had  to  trust  the  actual  nursing  to  order- 
lies who  had  never  seen  sickness  in  their  lives. 
Then,  there  was  the  same  lack  of  supplies  due 
to  mismanagement.  There  "were  no  vessels 
for  water  or  utensils  of  any  kind;  no  soap, 
towels  or  cloths,  no  hospital  clothes. "  "The 
sheets  were  of  canvas  and  so  coarse  that  the 
wounded  men  begged  to  be  left  in  their  blankets. 
There  was  no  bedroom  furniture  of  any  kind, 
and  only  beer  or  wine  bottles  for  candlesticks !' ? 
It  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  scene  of  worse  dis- 
order and  misery.  The  proportion  of  deaths 
to  the  whole  army,  from  disease  alone — ma- 
laria and  cholera — was  sixty  per  cent.  Seventy 
died  in  the  hospital  in  one  night.  There  was 
danger  that  the  entire  army  would  be  wiped 
out, — most  of  it  without  ever  receiving  a 
scratch  from  the  enemy's  weapons. 

It  was  in  this  extremity  that  the  British  na- 
tion appealed  to  Florence  Nightingale  to  save 
the  sick  and  wounded  men, — an  army  of  twen^- 
ty-eight  thousand  as  helpless  as  children 
before  the  ravages  of  disease — and  to  save  the 


134    HEKOINES  OF  MODEKN  PKOGEESS 

war.  Was  ever  a  bigger  task  put  upon  a 
woman? 

And  was  ever  a  bigger  honor?  Female 
nurses  had  never  before  been  admitted  to 
English  military  hospitals,  because  English 
nurses  anywhere  had  been  something  of  a  nui- 
sance. This  woman  must  have  proved  that  she 
was  not  a  nuisance.  For  the  minister  of  war 
requested  her  to  organize  a  band  of  nurses  for 
Scutari  and  gave  her  power  to  draw  upon  the 
government  to  any  extent. 

Miss  Nightingale  at  the  time  was  thirty-four 
years  old.  An  acquaintance  described  her 
thus:  "Simple,  intellectual,  sweet,  full  of  love 
and  benevolence,  she  is  a  fascinating  and  per- 
fect woman.  She  is  tall  and  pale.  Her  face 
is  exceedingly  lovely.  But  better  than  all  is 
the  soul's  glory  that  shines  through  every  fea- 
ture so  exultingly.  Nothing  can  be  sweeter 
than  her  smile.  It  is  like  a  sunny  day  in  sum- 
mer.' Again,  "young  (about  the  age  of  our 
Queen)  graceful,  feminine,  rich,  popular,  she 
holds  a  singularly  gentle  and  persuasive  influ- 
ence over  all  with  whom  she  comes  in  contact. 
Her  friends  and  acquaintances  are  of  all  classes 
and  persuasions,  but  her  happiest  place  is  at 
home  in  the  center  of  a  very  large  band  of  ac- 
complished relatives,  and  in  simplest  obedience 
to  her  admiring  parents.' 

Nevertheless  Scutari  needed  her.  She  was 
ready  for  Scutari.  It  was  that  for  which  she 
had  been  unconsciously  preparing  since  a  girl. 
She  was  ready,  and  she  went. 


FLOEENCE  NIGHTINGALE        135 

"Within  six  days  from  the  time  she  accepted 
the  post,  Miss  Nightingale  had  selected  thirty- 
eight  nurses,  and  departed  for  the  seat  of  war. 
She  arrived  at  Scutari  November  4,  1854,  and 
walked  the  length  of  the  barracks,  viewing  her 
two  miles  of  patients.  And  next  day  before 
she  could  form  any  plans,  the  fresh  victims  of 
another  battle  began  to  arrive.  There  was  not 
space  for  them  within  the  walls  and  hundreds 
had  to  repose,  with  what  comfort  they  could, 
in  the  mud  outside.  One  of  the  nurses  wrote, 
"Many  died  immediately  after  being  brought 
in — their  moans  would  pierce  the  heart — and 
the  look  of  agony  on  those  poor  dying  faces 
will  never  leave  my  heart."  A  terrible  situa- 
tion to  face ;  and  all  England  depending  on  her ! 

But  the  nurse  did  not  hesitate.  She  ordered 
the  patients  brought  in,  and  directed  where  to 
lay  them,  and  what  attention  they  should  have. 
She  was  up  and  around  twenty  hours  that  day, 
and  as  many  the  next,  until  a  place  had  been 
found  for  every  man,  even  in  the  corridors  and 
on  the  landings  of  the  stair.  As  leader  of  the 
nurses  she  might  have  confined  herself  to  ad- 
ministrative tasks — of  which  there  were 
enough  for  any  woman — and  stayed  in  the  of- 
fice. But  no.  She  shrank  from  the  sight  of 
no  operation.  Many  men,  indeed,  whose  cases 
the  surgeons  thought  hopeless,  she  nursed  back 
to  health.  A  visitor  saw  her  one  morning  at 
two  o'clock  at  the  bedside  of  a  dying  soldier, 
lamp  in  hand.  She  was  writing  down  his  last 
message  to  the  home  folks;  and  for  them,  too, 


136    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PBOOBESS 

she  took  in  charge  his  watch  and  trinkets — 
and  then  soothed  him  in  his  last  moments. 
And  this  was  but  one  case  in  thousands.  "She 
is  a  ministering  angel,  without  any  exaggera- 
tion, in  these  hospitals, "  wrote  a  correspondent 
of  the  London  Times,  ' '  and  as  the  slender  form 
glides  quietly  along  each  corridor,  every  poor 
fellow's  face  softens  with  gratitude  at  the  sight 
of  her.  When  all  the  medical  officers  have  re- 
tired for  the  night,  and  silence  and  darkness 
have  settled  down  upon  the  miles  of  prostrate 
sick,  she  may  be  observed  alone,  with  lamp  in 
hand,  making  her  solitary  rounds." 

One  soldier  said,  "I  can't  help  crying  when 
I  see  them.  Only  think  of  Englishwomen  com- 
ing out  here  to  nurse  us;  it  is  so  homely  and 
comfortable.'  He  probably  did  not  cry  alone. 
And  one  wrote  to  his  people, ' i  She  would  speak 
to  one  and  another  and  nod  and  smile  to  many 
more;  but  she  could  not  do  it  to  all,  you  know, 
for  we  lay  there  by  hundreds ;  but  we  could  kiss 
her  shadow  as  it  fell,  and  lay  our  heads  on  our 
pillows  again  content!'  It  was  of  this  inci- 
dent that  Longfellow  wrote  in  his  "Lady  with 
the  lamp": 

And  slow,  as  in  a  dream  of  bliss, 
The  speechless  sufferer  turns  to  kiss 
Her  shadow  as  it  falls 
Upon  the  darkening  walls. 

In  a  place  like  Scutari,  however,  this  kind  of 
feminine  tenderness  alone  would  avail  little. 


FLOEENCE  NIGHTINGALE        137 

Science  was  needed;  the  most  perfect  skill  in 
scientific  nursing.  The  windows  were  few, 
and  the  few  were  mostly  locked;  and  where 
one  was  opened  the  odors  of  decaying  animals 
came  in  to  pollute  still  more  the  foul  air  of  the 
wards. 

The  food  for  the  whole  hospital — for  those 
sick  of  fever,  cholera,  wounds  and  what  not,  as 
well  as  for  those  in  health — was  cooked,  like 
an  " Irish  stew,'  in  big  kettles.  Vegetables 
and  meats  were  dumped  in  together,  and  when 
any  one  felt  hungry  he  could  dip  for  himself. 
Naturally  some  got  food  overdone,  and  some 
got  it  raw;  the  luckiest  got  a  mess  that  was 
scarcely  palatable;  and  the  sick  could  gener- 
ally not  eat  at  all.  As  for  other  matters,  it 
has  been  shown  how  unclean  the  barrack  wards 
were,  how  "only  seven  shirts'  had  been  laun- 
dered in  all  those  wretched  weeks,  and  how  the 
infected  bed  linen  of  all  classes  of  patients  was 
thrown,  unsorted,  into  one  general  wash. 

But  Florence  Nightingale  had  spent  twelve 
years  in  the  hospitals  of  Europe  to  learn 
how  to  conquer  just  such  situations  as  this. 
She  had  the  waste  and  pollution  outside  the 
walls  cleared  away.  Then  she  threw  up  the 
windows,  and  set  a  carpenter  to  make  more. 
Within  ten  days  she  had  established  a  diet 
kitchen  and  was  feeding  the  men  each  on  the 
food  his  particular  case  demanded.  She  set 
up  a  laundry,  too,  where  the  garments  of  the 
sick  could  be  cleansed  in  a  sanitary  way.  All 
this  was  the  easier  to  do.  because  with  wise 


138    HEKOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

foresight  she  had  brought  the  necessary  arti- 
cles with  her  on  the  Victus  from  England. 
The  ship  gave  up  chicken,  jelly,  and  all  manner 
of  delicacies;  and,  on  a  single  day,  "a  thousand 
shirts,  besides  other  clothing.'  In  two  weeks 
that  "dreadful  den  of  dirt,  pestilence  and 
death ''  had  vanished;  and  in  its  place  stood  a 
building,  light  and  well  aired  throughout, 
where  patients  lay  on  spotless  cots,  ate  appe- 
tizing food  from  clean  dishes,  had  their  baths 
and  their  medicine  at  regular  intervals,  and 
never  for  an  hour  lacked  any  attention  that 
would  help  their  recovery. 

But  after  all  is  said  of  Florence  Nightin- 
gale's sympathy  and  her  science,  she  owed  her 
final  triumph  in  the  Crimea  to  a  rarer  talent, 
that  of  tactful  organizing  and  executive  power. 
Why  was  she  not  tethered  by  the  system  and 
the  red  tape  that  rendered  ineffectual  the  best 
efforts  of  the  medical  men?  Most  things 
needful  were  in  store  not  far  from  the  bar- 
racks hospital.  But  the  regular  physicians 
could  not  get  at  them.  Why  could  she? 

In  the  first  place  she  had  tact  enough  not  to 
offend  the  system.  The  minister  of  war  had 
warned  her,  "a  number  of  sentimental  enthus- 
iastic ladies  turned  loose  into  the  hospital  at 
Scutari  would  probably  after  a  few  days  be 
'mises  a  la  porte9  by  those  whose  business 
they  would  interrupt  and  whose  authority  they 
would  dispute."  Florence  Nightingale  did 
not  at  first  interrupt  or  dispute  anybody.  She 
began  by  doing  the  .neglected  minor  things, 


FLOKENCE  NIGHTINGALE        139 

the  things  that  no  one  else  had  time  for.  She 
opened  windows.  She  scrubbed  floors  and 
walls.  She  laundered  shirts.  She  peeled 
potatoes  and  boiled  soup.  She  bathed  the  pa- 
tients, dosed  them  with  medicine  while  the 
worn-out  surgeons  were  asleep,  read  to  them, 
and  wrote  letters  for  them.  In  these  activities 
she  asked  not  even  supplies  from  the  system, 
but  procured  them  from  her  own  ship. 

The  hidebound  officials  were  even  then  slow 
to  concur.  Perhaps  they  were  jealous  to  see 
their  own  incompetence  exposed.  And  there 
was  one  case, — just  one — where  she  came  to 
blows  with  them.  The  hospital  inmates  were 
in  desperate  want,  and  the  articles  for  their  re- 
lief were  nearby  in  a  warehouse,  but  the  stores 
could  not  be  disturbed  until  after  inspection. 
Miss  Nightingale  tried  to  hasten  the  inspection. 
Failing  of  that,  she  tried  to  get  them  distrib- 
uted without  inspection.  That  also  failed. 
"My  soldiers  are  dying,'  she  said.  "I  must 
have  those  stores.'  Whereupon,  she  called 
two  soldiers,  marched  them  to  the  warehouse, 
and  bade  them  burst  open  the  doors ! 

That  was  the  kind  of  firm  hand  she  could 
use.  More  often,  though,  she  attained  her 
ends  in  a  peaceful  way.  Only  a  little  feminine 
tact  was  necessary  to  bring  together  the  dila- 
tory members  of  a  board  and  get  them  to  un- 
lock a  storehouse.  She  was  soon  able  to  lay 
her  hands  on  an  abundance  of  anything  the 
situation  demanded.  Then,  besides  her  own 
small  band  of  nurses,  a  large  number  of  order- 


140    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

lies  and  common  soldiers  were,  after  a  time, 
detailed  to  work  under  her  direction. 
" Never,'  she  says,  "came  from  them  one 
word  or  one  look  which  a  gentleman  would  not 
have  used;'  and  many  of  them  became  at- 
tached to  her  with  an  almost  slavish  affection. 
More  than  that,  she  was,  for  the  English  at 
home,  the  one  commanding  figure,  and  her  hos- 
pital office,  the  headquarters  of  the  Crimean 
campaign.  The  Times  collected  a  big  fund 
and  placed  it  at  her  disposal.  And  all  over 
England  women  were  making  clothing — ship- 
loads of  it — which  they  addressed  to  the  sol- 
diers in  her  care.  "The  English  Nobility 
must  have  emptied  their  wardrobes  and  linen 
stores,'  said  a  nurse,  "to  send  out  bandages 
for  the  wounded.  There  was  the  most  beau- 
tiful underclothing  and  the  finest  cambric 
sheets,  with  merely  a  scissors  run  here  and 
there  through  them  to  insure  their  being  used 
for  no  other  purpose,  some  from  the  Queen's 
palace,  with  the  royal  monogram  beautifully 
worked. ' ' 

In  a  word,  Florence  Nightingale  became, 
through  her  wonderful  executive  talent,  the 
trusted  agent  of  the  whole  British  people,  as 
powerful  in  the  work  of  nursing  as  the  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  the  army  was  in  fighting. 
Some  one  called  her  the  lady-in-chief.  There 
is  perhaps  not  a  better  designation. 

And  the  result  of  her  efforts  justified  this 
faith.  When  she  arrived  the  death  rate  was 
sixty  per  cent.  She  reduced  it  in  a  few  weeks 


FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE        141 

to  one  per  cent.  Nine  of  her  nurses  died  on 
duty;  others  were  invalided  home;  she  herself 
was  long  fever  sick  and  near  to  death.  But 
for  two  years  she  battled  against  disease, 
always  in  a  winning  fight.  She  conquered  dis- 
ease. And  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  she 
conquered  the  Eussian  army,  and  saved  the 
war  for  the  allies.  No  wonder  England  wel- 
comed her  home  as  one  of  the  greatest  heroines 
in  all  her  history. 

Florence  Nightingale  returned  home  in  1856. 
It  was  soon  noised  about  that  she  was  not  only 
the  heroine  but  the  martyr  of  Crimea.  The 
strain  of  those  terrible  years  and  the  fever  had 
broken  her  health,  and  she  was  to  live,  there- 
after, a  house-ridden  invalid.  Although  still  a 
young  woman,  it  might  be  assumed  that  her 
usefulness  was  ended.  On  the  contrary,  dur- 
ing the  fifty  odd  years  that  remained  to  her, 
she  carried  on  from  her  London  home  a  great 
reform.  To  mankind  and  the  world  in  general 
that  reform  is,  in  fact,  so  great  that  the  Scutari 
experience  becomes  a  mere  incident  in  its  his- 
tory. 

The  English  people  had  desired  to  present 
her  some  testimonial  on  her  return.  Rich  and 
poor  all  over  the  kingdom  eagerly  subscribed 
— every  soldier  in  the  service  giving  a  day's 
pay — and  fifty  thousand  pounds  were  raised. 
But  the  woman  who  had  modestly  slipped 
home  by  a  secret  route  to  avoid  bell  ringing 
and  processions  in  her  honor  would  be  not 
likely  to  care  for  a  gift  of  money.  Her  heart 


142    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

was  still  in  her  work.  She  had  learned  much 
at  Scutari  that  she  wished  to  preserve.  So 
she  accepted  the  money  on  condition  that  she 
might  use  it  to  found  a  hospital ! 

The  St.  Thomas  Hospital  in  London  was 
accordingly  opened.  This  was  nothing  more 
or  less  than  a  high-class  school  for  nurses.  A 
student  had  to  bring  a  good  character  and  a 
fair  education.  She  was  taught  habits  of 
punctuality,  quietness,  and  personal  neatness; 
how  to  dress  wounds,  and  apply  bandages; 
how  to  make  beds  and  cook  for,  move  and  feed, 
and  observe  the  symptoms  of  patients.  Some 
might  think  this  knowledge  intuitive  in  women, 
said  Miss  Nightingale  in  the  prospectus. 
"Send  us  as  many  such  geniuses  as  you  can, 
for  we  are  sorely  in  need  of  them." 

She  knew  the  knowledge  was  not  intuitive. 
Had  it  been  so,  she  need  never  have  toiled  at 
Harley  Street,  never  doctored  and  fed  her  poor 
neighbors  at  home.  This  school  was  the  reply, 
to  the  ignorance  she  had  seen  in  those  places. 
It  was  the  goal  of  her  study  in  the  Kaiser- 
werth  and  the  Catholic  hospitals.  It  was  the 
thing  she  had  aimed  at  from  the  first'  and 
would,  perhaps,  have  realized  sooner  or  later. 
But  the  accidental  call  to  Crimea  gave  her,  in  t 
a  brief  time,  prestige  and  ripe  experience  and 
money.  And  these  she  hastened  to  use  for  the 
project  that  had  been  simmering  in  her  mind 
since  a  girl.  Now  at  last  she  had  her  desire. 
She  would  reform  the  hospitals  of  England. 
She  would  fill  them  with  nurses  who  brought 


FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE        143 

something  more  to  their  calling  than  a  "dis- 
appointment in  love." 

But  this  was  not  all.  The  hospitals  were 
mostly  reserved  for  contagious  cases.  And  in 
the  London  slums  were  thousands  of  sick,  in 
their  homes,  who  could  pay  very  little  for  a 
doctor's  service,  and  who  did  not  know  the 
bare  essentials  of  nursing.  There  were  many 
such  all  over  England.  Yes,  even  at  Lea 
Hurst!  Had  not  their  presence  at  Lea  Hurst 
been  the  thing  that  first  set  her  to  thinking  on 
the  whole  subject  of  hospitals  and  nurses? 
Well,  then,  she  must  do  something  for  those 
sick  poor  at  home ! 

In  1861  a  training  school  for  nurses  was,  at 
her  suggestion,  opened  at  Liverpool.  The 
graduates  of  this  school  nursed  the  neglected 
sick  in  pauper  institutions.  Then  in  1874  the 

1  National  Nursing  Association  announced  that 
it  was  ready  to  provide  skilled  nurses  for  the 
sick  poor  in  their  own  homes.  These,  said 
Miss  Nightingale,  would  keep  families  from 
pauperism  by  charming  the  bread  winners  back 
to  life.  And  they  would  so  "raise  the  homes 
that  they  would  never  fall  back  again  into  dirt 
and  disorder.'  That  this  result  might  be  the 
more  certain,  the  school  was  at  first  recruited 
only  from  "gentlewomen"  who  would  have  a 
•refining  influence  over  the  homes.  With  Miss 
Nightingale's  example,  women  of  the  better 
class  were  quick  to  enroll.  They  went  into  the 
slums  of  London,  wherever  sickness  was  re- 

,  ported,  and  nursed  the  sick,  and  taught  both 


144    HEBOINES  OF  MODEEN  PKOGRESS 

the  sick  and  the  well.  In  1877  the  jubilee  fund 
of  seventy  thousand  pounds  was  set  aside  to 
extend  the  work.  It  quickly-  spread  all  over 
England.  In  her  later  years  Miss  Nightingale 
had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  set  right  the  con- 
ditions that  had  first  aroused  her  sympathy. 
And  the  half  playful  pastime  of  her  child- 
hood had  become  a  skilled  profession,  known  as 
"district  nursing." 

Miss  Nightingale  also  wrote  books  of  great 
value  to  her  profession.  "Notes  on  Nursing' 
is  a  little  classic — as  packed  with  common 
sense  and  science  as  it  is  with  inspiration — 
which  any  woman  or  man  can  read  with  pleas- 
ure. By  these  means — by  directing  her  own 
hospital,  by  agitating  for  others,  by  scattering 
knowledge  broadcast  in  her  books, — Florence 
Nightingale  turned  her  Crimean  experience 
into  a  general  reform.  Now  there  are  hos- 
pitals perfectly  equipped  in  every  city — pri- 
vate hospitals  for  the  rich,  public  hospitals 
where  one  may  pay  much,  or  little,  according 
to  his  means.  District  nurses  go  everywhere, 
tending  the  sick,  and  showing  the  well  how  to 
keep  well  by  clean  and  temperate  living. 
Nurses  examine  children  in  the  schools.  They 
are  ready  for  service  in  the  great  stores. 
Scarce  a  country  doctor  anywhere  attempts  a 
case  of  typhoid  without  calling  a  school- 
trained  woman  to  assist  him.  And  these 
nurses  not  only  have  skill — which  Florence 
Nightingale  proved  necessary;  they  rightly  en- 
joy the  respect  and  admiration  of  every  other 


FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE        145 

class — for  Florence  Nightingale  made  nursing 
the  fashion.  All  this  is  of  infinitely  more  im- 
portance than  the  two  years'  labor  when  she 
healed  a  few  thousand  soldiers.  For  thous- 
ands are  healed  now  every  day  in  all  walks  of 
life.  She  affected  all  modern  history, — but 
just  because  her  influence  was  so  wide  her  his- 
tory cannot  here  be  written. 

.She  lived  until  August  13,  1910.  She  was 
always  very  retiring,  and  details  of  her  pri- 
vate life  are  very  scant.  As  with  the  testi- 
monial, she  always  avoided  public  honors. 
Nevertheless,  she  had  a  greater  honor  than  any 
monument,  in  that  she  was  revered  every  day 
in  the  year  by  all  who  knew  her  name.  This 
pleasing  anecdote  is  told  of  a  regiment  that 
had  suffered  at  Scutari.  The  officer  heard  of 
a  bust  just  completed  by  a  sculptor.  He  ob- 
tained permission  to  march  his  squad  into  the 
studio — they  not  knowing  why.  When  the 
bust  was  unveiled,  the  men  instantly  broke  out 
in  a  cry  "Miss  Nightingale,"  and  with  hats 
off  cheered  loud  and  long  the  image  of  their 
nurse.  Another  time  a  vote  was  taken  at  a 
banquet  on  who  of  the  Crimean  workers  would 
be  longest  remembered.  And  every  slip  read 
Florence  Nightingale. 

She  accomplished  one  of  the  greatest  and 
most  characteristic  reforms  of  modern  times. 
It  is  well  that  she  was  recognized  and  honored 
for  it.  And.  some  will  say  that  she  deserved 
all  the  more  glory  because  she  did  it  as  a 
woman.  But  this  she  herself  denied.  With 


146    HEKCINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGKESS 

her  the  work  was  the  main  thing.  She  would 
take  no  honor  for  herself  and  she  would  take 
none  for  her  sex.  Where  work  is  to  be  done 
she  would  efface  all  distinctions  among  those 
who  may  do  it. 

"Surely,"  she  said,  " woman  should  bring 
the  best  she  has,  whatever  that  is,  to  the  work 
of  God's  world,  without  attending  to  either  of 
these  cries.  It  does  not  make  a  thing  good 
that  it  is  remarkable  that  a  woman  should  have 
been  able  to  do  it,  neither  does  it  make  a  thing 
bad,  which  would  have  been  good  had  a  man 
done  it,  that  it  has  been  done  by  a  woman.' 
"0,  leave  these  jargons  and  go  your  way 
straight  to  God's  work,  in  simplicity  and  sin- 
gleness of  heart!"  She  herself  had  gone  in 
singleness  of  heart.  For  the  work  was  indeed 
to  her  " God's  work.'  " Nursing,'  she  said, 
"is  an  art;  and  if  it  is  to  be  made  an  art  re- 
quires as  exclusive  a  devotion  as  any  painter's 
or  sculptor's  work;  for  what  is  the  having  to 
do  with  dead  canvas  or  cold  marble  compared 
with  having  to  do  with  the  living  body,  the 
temple  of  God's  spirit?  Nursing  is  one  of  the 
fine  arts;  I  had  almost  said  the  finest  of  the 
fine  arts." 


CLARA  BARTON 


CLARA  BARTON 

EVEEY  year  at  Christmas  the  United 
States  mail  is  full  of  letters,  packages 
and  boxes  to  which  Bed  Cross  stamps  have 
been  affixed;  from  the  sale  of  the  stamps, 
money  is  derived  for  the  prevention  of  tuber- 
culosis. Their  presence  is  largely  due  to  the 
influence  of  a  woman  named  Clara  Barton. 
She  was  born  on  Christmas  day;  she  founded 
the  Bed  Cross  in  America;  and  whatever  dis- 
ease or  misfortune  beset  her  people,  it  was  her 
enemy,  and  she  led  in  the  fight  against  it. 

Clara  Barton  was  born  near  Oxford,  Wor- 
cester County,  Massachusetts,  in  1821.  Her 
father  had  fought  under  Mad  Anthony,  and  still 
possessed  a  store  of  military  tales ;  but  to  Clara 
he  was  known  only  as  a  hero  long  retired,  and 
the  present  owner  of  a  lean  hill  farm.  The 
girl's  early  experience  was  that  of  an  ordinary 
American  farm  child. 

She  never  played  with  dolls,  but,  from  the 
first  with  living  animals — ducks,  dogs,  and 
horses.  She  was  an  outdoor  child,  healthy  and 
athletic.  In  summer  she  scampered  free 
through  the  woods  and  meadows  and  in  winter 
coasted  on  her  toboggan  down  the  snowy  hill- 
sides. As  early  as  her  fifth  year,  her  brother 
David  would  fling  her  astride  of  a  tall,  bare- 
backed horse,  leap  on  another  himself  and, 

147 


148    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PKOGEESS 

leading  her  mount,  dash  away  at  a  mad  gallop 
through  the  pasture,  while  she  hung  onto  the 
mane  for  dear  life.  The  exercise  was  to  good 
purpose,  for  she  wrote  long  afterward,  as  a 
woman  of  seventy-seven,  i  i  To  this  day  my  seat 
on  a  saddle  or  on  the  back  of  a  horse  is  as 
secure  and  tireless  as  in  a  rocking  chair,  and 
far  more  pleasurable. " 

Clara  was  just  as  precocious  at  country 
/  work  as  she  was  at  country  play*.  The  young- 
est, by  a  dozen  years,  of  a  family  of  two  boys 
and  two  girls,  many  duties,  too  small  for 
stronger  muscles,  were  shifted  upon  her  shoul- 
ders. She  brought  home  the  cows,  and  milked, 
and  wearied  her  small  arms  on  the  dasher  of 
the  churn.  She  dropped  potatoes  while  her 
father  covered,  weeded  the  onion  beds,  and 
picked  the  berries  for  pies.  Though  she  be- 
came adept  in  all  the  countless  tasks  of  the 
farm  and  the  farmhouse,  it  is  not  recorded 
that  she  had  special  aptitude  for  any  particu- 
lar one.  Like  any  country  girl,  she  did  them 
all  because  they  were  there  to  be  done,  turning 
with  ready  interest  and  deft  hand  now  to  one, 
and  now  to  another. 

Clara's  training  in  school  subjects  was  as 
varied  and  as  thorough  as  her  training  in  farm 
work.  The  relation  of  the  rest  of  the  family 
to  her  was  naturally  that  of  mature,  serious- 
minded  teachers.  As  David  taught  her  horse- 
manship, so  her  older  brother  led  her  into  the 
mysteries  of  mathematics,  her  two  sisters- 
already  teachers  in  the  public  schools — inter- 


CLAKA  BAKTON  149 

ested  her  in  literature,  and  her  father  drilled 
her  in  history  and  politics. 

These  seeds  of  book  learning  fell  also  upon 
fertile  soil.  The  sisters  probably  wished  it  a 
little  less  fertile  when  she  woke  them  up,  be- 
fore light  of  a  cold  winter  morning,  to  find 
places  on  the  map  by  the  flare  of  a  tallow 
candle.  And  the  teacher  must  have  wrinkled 
his  brows  over  the  new  prodigy  on  her  first 
day  in  school.  "I  was  seated,'  writes  Miss 
Barton,  "on  one  of  the  low  benches  and  sat 
very  still.  At  length  the  majestic  school- 
master seated  himself,  and,  taking  a  primer, 
called  the  class  of  little  ones  to  him.  He 
pointed  the  letters  to  each.  I  named  them  all, 
and  was  asked  to  spell  some  little  words,  'dog,' 
'cat,'  etc.,  whereupon,  I  hesitatingly  informed 
him  that  I ' did  not  spell  there. '  'Where  do  you 
spell r  'I  spell  in  artichoke,'  that  being  the 
leading  word  in  the  three  syllable  column  in 
my  speller..  He  good-naturedly  conformed  to 
my  suggestion,  and  I  was  put  into  the  'arti- 
choke' class  to  bear  my  part  for  the  winter, 
and  read  and  'spell  for  the  head.'  " 

The  indications,  so  far,  were  that  Clara  Bar- 
ton would  make  her  mark  in  any  field  where 
fortune  might  cast  her.  But  while  she  was 
still  quite  young  there  appeared  a  single  un- 
fortunate trait  that  threatened  to  spoil  all  the 
others  and  to  clog  her  every  step.  With  all 
her  courage  displayed  in  hardy  outdoor  sports, 
she  was  painfully  bashful  and  timid  in  the 
presence  of  people.  She  could  not  bring  her- 


150    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

self  to  mention  her  personal  needs  to  her  very 
mother.  One  Sunday  morning,  she  joined  the 
church-going  party  with  bare  hands.  Asked 
where  her  gloves  were,  she  hesitatingly  replied 
that  she  had  none.  They  were  worn  out. 
When  her  mother  asked  her  why  she  had  not 
spoken  of  the  fact,  so  that  new  gloves  could  be 
bought,  the  sensitive  girl  burst  into  tears  and 
fled  from  the  room. 

A  young  person  of  such  excessive  modesty 
would  obviously  not  succeed  in  strange  parts. 
The  parents,  thinking  that  perhaps  contact 
with  strangers  would  overcome  the  vexatious 
trait,  sent  her  away,  in  her  tenth  year,  to  high 
school.  But  she  was  afraid  of  her  teacher  and 
schoolmates,  afraid  to  recite,  afraid  to  eat. 
At  last  she  became  dangerously  ill,  from 
nothing  at  all  but  timidity,  and  was  packed  off 
home  again  in  haste.  Believing  herself  a  fail- 
ure, she  settled  once  more  into  the  routine  of 
farm  life.  Handy  as  she  was  at  any  trick, 
mental  or  physical,  playful  or  serious,  her 
bashfulness  stood  ever  in  her  way,  and  it 
seemed  thai'  only  in  the  seclusion  and  solitude 
of  the  farm  could  she  be  happy  and  useful. 

When  she  was  eleven  years  of  age,  however, 
a  memorable  accident  occurred.  Her  brother 
David,  her  riding  master  and  childhood's  idol, 
sustained  an  injury  from  a  fall  and  later  came 
down  with  a  fever.  The  physicians  of  the  re- 
gion knew  little  of  therapeutics  beyond  blister- 
ing and  blood-letting.  They  were  frankly  baf- 
fled by  this  mysterious  case  of  "settled 


CLARA  BAETON  151 

fever;"  and  by  their  desperate  applications  of 
knife  and  plaster,  and  leech,  they  succeeded  in 
keeping  the  poor  fellow  at  death's  door  for 
nearly  two  years. 

David,  in  his  miserable  state,  clung  help- 
lessly to  the  child  Clara.  She  was  stricken 
with  grief  at  his  misfortune.  For  hours  at  a 
time  she  sat  by  his  bedside,  and  could  not  be 
taken  away  except  by  compulsion.  With  a 
boldness  unnatural  to  her,  she  insisted  on  at- 
tending to  his  every  want.  From  an  outdoor 
girl  she  was  transformed  into  one  who  for 
two  years  "almost  forgot  that  there  was  an 
outside  to  the  house."  She  learned  to  handle 
the  leeches  and  dress  the  blisters  and  to  "take 
all  directions  for  his  medicines  from  his  phy- 
sician and  to  administer  them.'  In  the  in- 
tensity of  her  affection  she  became  so  confident 
and  bold  that  she  virtually  banished  the  older 
members  of  the  family  from  the  room. 

By  the  time  David  recovered,  the  girl  of 
thirteen  was  well  grounded  in  the  valuable  art 
of  nursing.  And  those  who  watched  her  be- 
gan dimly  to  discern  something  else.  From 
all  the  activities  possible  to  one  of  her  gifts, 
there  might  be  some  that  her  timidity  would 
not  impede. 

For  the  present,  however,  her  prospects 
seemed  very  slender.  Her  occupation  of  two 
years  was  gone.  At  the  same  time  the  round 
of  serious  duties  to  which  she  had  been  hard- 
ened gave  her  a  premature  sense  of  the  value 
of  the  passing  hour  and  the  necessity  of  being 


152    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

usefully  employed;  but  on  the  other  hand, 
when  she  issued  from  her  seclusion,  she  was, 
in  the  face  of  the  strange  world,  more  diffident 
and  retiring  fhan  ever.  Unless  some  idolized 
relative  were  again  stretched  on  the  sick  bed, 
to  what  could  she  devote  her  gifts  and  her 
energy?  Clara  grew  restless,  then  despondent, 
then  feverishly  anxious  for  something  to  do. 
She  resumed  her  home  studies  under  the  tuition 
of  her  brother  S-P  ac  sisters.  She  tramped  a 
mile  and  a  half  10  school  through  the  snow — 
but  to  little  purpose,  for  the  teachers  were  less 
advanced  than  she.  Once,  for  two  weeks,  she 
operated  a  loom  in  her  brother's  mill,  until,  as 
the  joke  went,  her  too  rapid  motions  produced 
combustion  and  set  the  building  on  fire.  But 
still  she  was  oppressed  with  a  sense  of  idleness ; 
and  still  her  nature  shrank  when  she  would 
have  struck  out  into  any  suitable  labor.  Then, 
in  the  nick  of  time,  there  came  one  to  reassure 
and  direct  her. 

In  Clara  Barton's  youth,  the  now  discredited 
"science"  of  phrenology  was  very  popular  and 
influential.  Mr.  Fowler,  a  professor  of  the 
"science,"  lectured  one  winter  at  Oxford,  and 
boarded,  during  the  time,  with  the  Bartons. 
With  him,  the  mother  discussed  the  case  of 
her  "peculiar"  daughter.  The  professor  un- 
dertook, by  a  study  of  the  bumps,  to  ascertain 
for  what  the  girl  was  destined.  "She  will 
never  assert  herself  for  herself,"  he  announced. 
"She  will  suffer  wrong  first — but  for  others  she 
will  be  perfectly  fearless.  Throw  responsibility 


CLARA  BARTON  153 

upon  her.  She  has  all  the  qualifications  of  a 
teacher.  As  soon  as  her  age  will  permit,  give 
her  a  school  to  teach." 

It  was  so  decided.  At  sixteen  years  of  age, 
Miss  Clara  took  charge  of  District  School  Num- 
ber Nine.  Strangely  enough,  the  predictions  of 
the  "scientist"  were  fulfilled.  Too  frightened, 
on  the  opening  day,  to  look  her  pupils  in  the 
face,  the  girl  had  to  fasten  her  eyes  upon  her 
Bible  and  read  aloud  to  thein  itil  she  gained 
composure.  She  soon  observed,  however,  that 
they  respected  and  even  stood  in  awe  of  her. 
That  was  a  totally  new  experience — that  anyone 
should  feel  abashed  before  her.  The  timid 
girl's  warm  sympathy  flowed  out  to  those  who 
were  also  timid ;  and  almost  in  a  day  her  weak- 
ness had  been  transmuted  into  a  teacher's  most 
golden  attributes — sympathetic  understanding 
and  kindness. 

One  day  some  of  the  younger  pupils  were  be- 
ing bullied,  by  the  older  ones  on  the  playground. 
Miss  Barton  rushed  out  to  calm  the  strife.  She 
took  a  part  in  the  game  and  while  protecting 
the  weak  she  proved  herself,  both  in  athletic 
skill  and  in  judgment,  the  superior  of  the 
strong.  That  was  precisely  what  the  phrenol- 
ogist had  said:  devotion  to  the  weak  could 
make  her  strong.  And  the  man  need  not  have 
based  his  statement  on  the  evidence  of  cran- 
ial bumps  alone,  for  the  girl  had  borne  wit- 
ness to  the  same  truth  in  the  care  of  her 
brother.  Shrewdness  of  mind  and  hand  that 
might  excel  in  almost  any  endeavor  she  un- 


154    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

doubtedly  possessed,  but  generally  her  personal 
fears  crippled  her  effort.  When  serving  others, 
however,  as  nurse,  as  teacher — perhaps  in  any 
capacity — she  could  forget  herself,  and  then 
her  versatile  talents  came  into  free  play. 

In  discipline,  Miss  Barton's  school  ranked 
first  in  the  town.  On  the  publication  of  this 
news,  she  was  invited  to  teach  in  several  dis- 
tricts where  discipline  was  needed.  She  no 
longer  disliked  the  occupation,  since  it  called 
out  her  finest  powers.  So  for  nearly  eight 
consecutive  years  she  followed  it,  excepting 
only  a  brief  period  when  she  studied  at  Clin- 
ton, New  York.  The  quality  of  her  teaching 
may  be  inferred  from  a  single  instance.  In 
Bordentown,  New  Jersey,  a  number  of  relig- 
ions were  contending  one  against  another,  and 
the  partisans  of  each  sect  undertook  to  educate 
their  own  children  in  denominational  schools. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  great  many  children  be- 
longed to  none  of  these  institutions.  No  free 
public  school  was  in  existence.  Three  times 
one  had  been  started,  but  each  time  opposition 
had  crushed  it,  or  weak  management  had  let  it 
die.  As  a  result,  the  brightest  boys  ran  un- 
taught on  the  streets,  and  Bordentown 's  fu- 
ture citizens  threatened  to  be  disgracefully 
ignorant  and  criminal. 

Into  this  town  went  Clara  Barton  to  found 
a  public  school.  The  citizens  told  her  it  could 
not  be  done.  She  said  she  hoped  to  convince 
them  it  could;  and  she  assumed  responsibility 
for  three  months  at  her  own  expense!  They 


CLAEA  BARTON  155 

loaned  her  a  tumble-down  building  and  she 
began  with  six  pupils.  In  four  weeks  the 
room  overflowed  and  another  had  to  be  an- 
nexed. The  following  year  a  new  building  was 
erected  with  seats  for  the  five  hundred  pupils 
who  desired  admission.  The  authorities  will- 
ingly voted  their  teacher  the  salary  she  had 
agreed  to  do  without. 

Ill  health  in  1854  forced  Miss  Barton  to  re- 
sign from  the  Bordentown  position  and,  as  it 
chanced,  from  her  profession.  While  on  a 
visit  to  Washington  the  same  year  she  learned 
of  certain  scandals  in  the  Patent  Office.  The 
clerks  were  betraying  the  ideas  of  inventors 
who  had  filed  patents.  In  these  defrauded  in- 
ventors, Miss  Barton  saw  another  class  of 
weak  or  undefended  people,  like  the  boys  of 
Bordentown,  like  her  invalid  brother.  Her 
temper  was  aroused.  She  thought  she  could 
help.  Though  the  farm  had  been  her  principal 
school,  and  teaching  her  only  profession,  she 
felt  that  she  could  adapt  her  strength  to  any 
task,  so  long  as  the  task,  as  the  phrenologist 
said,  was  "for  others.''  Just  here  Miss  Bar- 
ton did  a  rather  curious  thing,  but  a  thing  that, 
as  time  went  on,  would  in  her  seem  less  curi- 
ous. She  deliberately  forsook  one  profession 
and  took  up  another. 

Through  a  relative  in  Congress,  she  was  ap- 
pointed head  clerk  in  the  Patent  Office.  As  the 
first  woman  employee  of  the  department,  the 
clerks  resented  her  intrusion.  They  ranged 
themselves  along  the  walls  of  the  corridor 


156    HEEOINES  OF  MODEBN  PROGRESS 

through  which  she  had  to  walk  and  stared  at 
her  and  whistled  softly  as  she  passed.  They 
meant  to  drive  her  out.  Kudeness  failing, 
they  tried  slander;  and,  after  that,  disobedi- 
ence. But  the  woman  was  undaunted.  She 
discharged  some  clerks  and  by  reproof  and  by 
example  instilled  into  the  rest  a  new  sense  of 
honor.  She  remained  at  her  post  three  years. 
By  1857  when  she  was  removed  for  alleged 
anti-slavery  sentiments,  she  had  thoroughly 
reformed  the  office. 

The  next  few  years  were  uneventful.  Miss 
Barton  lived  at  her  home  in  Massachusetts 
keeping  house  and  doing  clerical  work  for  her 
brothers.  Meanwhile  the  premonitory  rum- 
blings of  the  Civil  War  had  begun  to  shake  the 
land.  The  friends  of  peace  and  unity  were 
everywhere  distraught.  And  Clara  Barton — 
the  daughter  of  a  soldier — did  not  pass  those 
quiet  years  without  much  grim  thinking  and 
resolving.  A  friend  reports  this  conversation 
with  her: 

' '  She  had  saved  a  little  in  time  of  peace  and 
she  intended  to  devote  it  and  herself  to  the 
services  of  her  country  and  of  humanity.  If 
war  must  be  she  neither  expected  nor  desired 
to  come  out  of  it  with  a  dollar.  If  she  sur- 
vived she  could  no  doubt  earn  a  living;  and  if 
she  did  not,  it  was  no  matter.' 

Through  the  winter  of  1860-61,  she  resided 
at  Washington  and  there  on  April  19  came 
an  event  which  again  definitely  altered  the 
course  of  her  life.  The  practical  farm  girl 


CLARA  BAKTON  157 

and  child-nurse,  the  kind  but  forceful  teacher, 
and  the  methodical,  conscientious  clerk  were 
dismissed  into  her  past;  or,  rather,  she  com- 
bined them  all  in  a  new  and  stronger  character 
for  her  new  and  greater  work. 

One  day  a  train  rolled  into  Washington  from 
Baltimore,  and  from  it  alighted  not  the  usual 
throng  of  cheerful  travelers,  but  a  horde  of 
torn  and  muddy  soldiers.  Some  of  them  were 
limping,  some  had  arms  trussed  up,  and  some 
were  borne  on  stretchers.  These  fellows  had 
been  in  a  battle.  Clara  Barton  was  at  the  sta- 
tion and  saw  them  detrained.  She  recognized 
them  as  the  Sixth  Massachusetts  militia — and 
recognized,  too,  some  of  her  own  friends  from 
home  and  her  former  pupils! 

The  wounded  men  were  hurried  to  the  in- 
firmary; the  uninjured  were  quartered  in  the 
Capitol.  But  forty  fresh  patients,  arriving  all 
at  once,  disturbed  the  arrangements  of  a  quiet, 
peace-time  hospital.  The  place  was  overtaxed 
and  thrown  almost  into  a  panic.  Miss  Barton 
had  come  with  a  crowd  in  the  wake  of  the  am- 
bulance. She  saw  the  confusion — the  dearth 
of  cots,  the  scarcity  of  nurses,  the  pain  of  the 
soldiers  who  lay  unattended.  What  better 
chance  to  serve  "her  country  and  humanity!7 
She  was  something  of  a  nurse  herself,  and 
knew  where  to  take  hold.  So  she  quietly  put 
on  her  apron  and  with  ready  adroitness  busied 
herself  in  the  wards,  helping  dress  the  boys' 
wounds,  reading  them  the  news,  and  writing 
letters  to  their  parents. 


158    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

Later,  she  went  to  the  Capitol.  She  found 
the  soldiers  there  half  famished,  for  they  were 
unexpected  guests,  and  the  military  authorities 
had  not  unpacked  their  stores.  The  men  were 
not  starved  only;  they  were  discouraged  and 
pessimistic,  and  to  their  minds  the  American 
nation  was  crashing  down  to  ruin.  Clara  Bar- 
ton thereupon  made  a  trip  to  the  market, 
bought  baskets  of  food  and  had  them  carried 
to  the  Capitol.  While  the  grateful  soldiers 
feasted,  she  mounted  the  Speaker's  platform 
and  made  them  forget  their  gloom  by  reading 
newspaper  accounts  of  their  impressive  prog- 
ress toward  the  front. 

This  was  the  beginning.  And  now,  "as  if 
by  magic  the  peaceful  North  became  one  vast 
camp."  Soldiers  poured  into  Washington 
from  all  quarters,  bound  for  the  South.  A 
good  many  of  them  had  been  taken  ill  on  the 
way  and  were  consigned  to  hospitals  where  as 
yet  there  was  insufficient  provision  for  them. 
Miss  Barton  was  on  the  watch  and  went  to  the 
aid  of  the  unfortunates.  They  wrote  home 
about  her,  and  one  morning  she  awoke  to  find 
herself — not  famous  yet — but  useful  to  the  full 
extent  of  her  powers. 

That  morning  the  postman  handed  her  a 
great  bundle  of  letters.  She  tore  one  open. 
The  mother  of  one  of  her  Bordentown  pupils 
enclosed  a  letter  to  him  and  begged  Miss  Bar- 
ton to  deliver  it.  She  opened  another.  A  girl 
from  Oxford  asked  her  to  be  sure  a  certain  ail- 
ing brother  did  not  want  for  medicine.  She 


CLAEA  BAETON  159 

opened  another — but  before  she  could  digest 
the  fifty,  an  express  wagon  rattled  up  with  a 
load  of  boxes  and  barrels — addressed  to  Clara 
Barton!  Here  was  a  crate  of  jellies  from 
some  family  she  knew,  here  a  case  of  cordials 
from  a  sewing  circle,  here  a  barrel  of  food  to 
entice  bed-ridden  soldiers,  or  of  bandages  to 
bind  up  their  wounds.  All  these  things  Miss 
Barton  was  asked  to  parcel  out — some  to  cer- 
tain designated  persons,  the  rest,  according  to 
her  wisdom,  wherever  the  nation's  men  could 
use  it. 

This  was  the  second  step.  The  next  fol- 
lowed soon.  Before  long  Miss  Barton's  room, 
as  well  as  several  warerooms  that  she  had 
leased,  was  overflowing  with  supplies.  But 
meanwhile  need  of  them  abated,  for  the  hos- 
pitals and  commissaries  had  got  into  working 
order.  Washington  was  no  longer  the  place 
for  Clara  Barton.  As  she  once  said,  she 
wanted  "something  to  do  that  no  one  else 
would  do;  something  that  no  one  else  had 
thought  of  doing. " 

For  some  time  she  had  assisted  at  the 
wharves  where  the  bloody  and  dying  men, 
brought  up  the  Potomac  on  transports,  were 
unloaded.  The  poor  fellows,  on  whom  the  mud 
and  gore  of  battle  was  "baked  hard  like  the 
shell  of  turtles,"  got  no  relief  till  they  were 
lodged  in  the  hospitals.  Disgraceful!  Clara 
Barton  could  not  permit  that.  She  boarded 
one  of  those  transports  with  restoratives  and 
food,  and  went  down  the  river  to  where  the  suf- 


160    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGRESS 

ferers  were  received  from  the  battlefield,  and 
tended  them  during  the  return  voyage.  But 
even  that  would  not  suffice.  Some  of  the  vic- 
tims did  not  reach  the  boat  until  long,  weary 
days  after  their  misfortune.  Miss  Barton  'saw 
that  much  pain  could  be  alleviated  by  a  nurse 
present  on  the  actual  field  of  battle.  Here  was 
at  last  "something  no  one  else  had  thought  of 
doing. ' ' 

"Clara  Barton  had  never  nursed  behind  the 
firing  line.  It  is  doubtful  if  she  had  ever 
heard  of  a  woman's  doing  it — though  Florence 
Nightingale,  a  few  years  earlier,  had  made 
bold  to  go  to  the  Crimean  hospitals,  and 
thousands  of  American  women  under  the 
"Sanitary  and  Christian  Commission'  were 
even  now  hastening  to  the  front.  She  had 
only  taught  school  and  kept  books;  but  she 
believed  that  she  could  also  do  this  new  and 
greater  work.  She  took  stock  of  her  talents 
and  fearlessly  made  her  third  lightning  change 
from  one  occupation  to  another. 

Miss  Barton  applied  for  a  pass  beyond  the 
army  lines,  and,  after  many  rebuffs,  was 
granted  one.  No  department  of  the  Govern- 
ment employed  her,  -however,  nor  did  she  ever 
attach  herself  to  the  Sanitary  and  Christian 
Commission.  She  was  subject  to  no  one;  she 
had  authority  over  no  one.  She  was  simply  an 
American  woman,  free  to  stay  if  she  would, 
free  to  go  if  she  could.  Yet  she  was  encour- 
aged from  the  first  by  individual  officers.  Fi- 
nally, after  Culpepper  Court  House,  and  Cedar 


CLARA  BABTON  161 

Mountain,  where,  under  fire  for  hours,  she 
helped  the  surgeons  in  the  field  hospitals  and 
asserted  her  practical  sense  in  portioning  out 
the  food  and  medicine  from  her  own  wagons, 
the  quartermaster  granted  her  requisitions 
from  the  government  stores  and  ample  means 
for  transportation.  Thus  was  perfected  the 
famous  army  nurse.  From  now  on,  she  fol- 
lowed the  Union  forces  and  was  just  behind 
the  battle  line  at  many  of  the  most  deadly  con- 
flicts. 

At  Antietam,  when  the  fighting  began,  her 
muleteers  drove  their  wagons  through  a  field 
of  tall  corn  to  an  old  homestead.  The  shot 
whizzed  thick  around  them.  "In  the  barnyard 
and  among  the  corn  lay  torn  and  bleeding  men 
— the  worst  cases  just  brought  from  the  places 
where  they  had  fallen/  The  army  medical 
supplies  had  not  yet  arrived,  and  the  surgeons 
were  trying  to  make  bandages  of  corn  husks! 
To  them  Clara  Barton  opened  her  own  stock. 
Then  she  hurried  among  the  wounded  to  re- 
vive them  with  bread  steeped  in  wine.  When 
her  bread  gave  out,  she  took  meal  from  her 
wagons  and  mixed  gruel  which  was  carried 
along  the  line  for  miles  in  buckets.  Though 
the  operating  had  begun  in  the  morning,  the 
fields  at  nightfall  were  still  strewn  with 
wounded  soldiers.  Then  the  distracted  sur- 
geons confessed  that  they  had  no  candles,  and 
could  not  stir  till  daylight.  Hundreds  of  men 
would  perish  unattended.  At  that,  Clara  Bar- 
ton ran  to  her  wagons  and  returned  with  bush- 


162    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

els  of  candles  and  thirty  lanterns  to  burn  them 
in.  The  operating  proceeded — all  night,  and 
all  next  day.  And  only  on  the  third  day  did 
the  regular  army  supplies  arrive. 

Miss  Barton's  courage  is  well  illustrated  in 
an  episode  at  Fredericksburg.  In  a  division 
of  the  army  across  the  river  from  the  city,  she 
was  watching  over  an  injured  rebel  when  a 
message  arrived  with  the  request  that  she 
come  into  the  city  to  organize  a  diet  kitchen. 
Hearing  the  message,  the  dying  soldier  whis- 
pered to  her,  "Lady,  you  have  been  kind  to 
me.  .  .  .  Every  street  and  lane  of  the  city 
is  covered  by  our  cannon.  When  your  entire 
army  has  reached  the  other  side  of  the  Rappa- 
hannock,  they  will  find  Fredericksburg  only 
slaughter  pen.  Not  a  regiment  will  escape. 
Do  not  go  over,  for  you  will  go  to  certain 
death."  Miss  Barton  merely  soothed  her 
friend  until  in  spite  of  all  her  efforts  he  died; 
then,  in  the  face  of  his  advice,  she  crossed  the 
river  into  the  threatened  town.  But  this  in- 
stance of  the  woman's  daring  is  only  one  in 
many.  She  was  constantly  in  danger.  Her 
clothing  was  often  pierced  by  bullets  and  her 
face  blackened  by  the  powder  smoke.  At  An- 
tietam,  when  stooping  to  raise  a  fallen  lad,  a 
ball  passed  between  her  arm  and  her  body,  en- 
tered the  soldier's  breast  and  killed  him. 

Not  less  heroic  was  her  patient  endurance  on 
Morris  Island,  when  the  Federals  were  holding 
it.  No  vegetation,  not  even  a  weed,  grew  on 
the  island.  The  sun  was  blistering  hot,  and 


CLAEA  BARTON  163 

ocean  gales  swept  the  sand,  driving  it  into  the 
eyes  and  nostrils  of  the  defenders.  Light, 
floorless  tents,  which  the  wind  sometimes  up- 
set, were  the  only  protection.  Yet  Clara  Bar- 
ton was  on  duty  here  for  an  entire  summer. 
Sheltered  in  the  lea  of  a  sand  hill,  with  three 
or  four  men  to  help  her,  she  toiled  through  the 
long  days,  boiling  water,  washing  wounds,  and 
preparing  tea  and  coffee  and  delicate  foods. 
Living  on  soldiers'  rations  herself,  she  more 
than  once  broke  down.  But  she  arose  in  a  few 
days  as  determined,  if  not  as  vigorous,  as  ever. 
"The  other  ladies,"  so  she  commented, 
"thought  they  could  not  endure  the  climate, 
and,  as  I  knew  somebody  must  take  care  of  the 
soldiers,  I  went." 

Clara  Barton  would  not  accept  any  comforts 
that  were  not  common  to  all,  or  that  were  ob- 
tained at  the  expense  of  non-combatant  South- 
erners. Once  some  soldiers  brought  her  a 
costly  and  elegant  carpet. 

"What  is  this  for?"  she  asked.  "It  is  for 
you,"  they  said.  "You  have  been  so  good  to 
us  that  we  wanted  to  bring  you  something." 

"Where  did  you  get  it?" 

"We  confiscated  it." 

"No,  no,"  cried  the  woman,  "that  will  never 
do.  Governments  confiscate.  Soldiers,  when 
they  take  such  things,  steal." 

And  she  made  them  carry  the  carpet  back 
to  the  deserted  house  from  which  they  had 
taken  it. 

Thus  for  four  years  Miss  Barton  hovered  on 


164    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

the  bloody  trail  of  war.  By  her  ingenious 
practicality,  she  was  able  to  foresee  what 
things  would  be  necessary  in  any  emergency; 
by  her  business  acumen,  she  was  able  to  obtain 
them  beforehand  and  rush  them  to  the  field. 
In  this  manner  she  rendered  invaluable  aid  to 
the  overworked  and  ill-equipped  surgeons. 
She  gave  the  relief  corps  of  the  armies  an  ob- 
ject lesson  in  efficiency  which  they  would  not 
be  slow  to  improve.  Of  greater  consequence, 
however,  she  found  a  new  profession  for 
woman :  that  of  going  in  person  behind  the 
battle  lines,  to  nurse  the  men  who  were  shot 
in  her  country's  fight.  It  was  a  discovery 
worthy  of  one  who  could  be  fearless  only  for 
others,  and  who  wanted  to  do  what  no  one  else 
had  thought  of  doing. 

So  much  was  pure  patriotism.  Yet  here  and 
there  she  gave  tokens  of  a  passion  still  larger. 
She  respected  scrupulously  the  property  rights 
of  the  Southerners.  And  where  she  could,  she 
nursed  her  stricken  foes  as  well  as  her  friends. 
That  was  the  purest  humanity,  and  in  that  lay 
the  promise  of  her  future. 

While  on  the  field,  Miss  Barton  had  com- 
piled hospital  and  burial  lists.  After  the  war, 
other  lists  were  put  into  her  hands.  The 
friends  of  missing  soldiers  began  to  inquire 
where  such  and  such  men  of  such  and  such 
regiments  were  buried,  that  a  stone  might  be 
set  up  over  their  graves.  The  government 
had  no  bureau  to  answer  such  inquiries.  Here 
was  another  opening  for  the  ever-ready  Miss 


CLAEA  BAETON  165 

Barton.  From  an  office  in  Washington,  she 
superintended  a  vast  correspondence  and 
traced  over  thirty  thousand  men,  living  and 
dead.  This  service  was  undertaken  at  her  own 
risk,  without  pay.  But  later  the  government 
reimbursed  her. 

From  1867  to  1869,  Miss  Barton  lectured 
through  the  North  on  the  lyceum  circuit.  In 
1869,  she  went  to  Europe  for  a  rest.  Her  na- 
tion was  now  at  peace.  Her  patriotism  was 
spent.  She  might  have  thought  her  greatest, 
if  not  her  whole  life  work,  was  completed. 
But  in  Europe,  unexpectedly,  there  opened  a 
new  phase  of  her  career  in  which  all  the  others 
culminated. 

While  resting  and  sight-seeing  in  Geneva, 
Miss  Barton  was  called  on  one  day  by  a  gen- 
tleman who  said  he  "represented  the  Interna- 
tional Committee  of  the  Red  Cross." 
"What,"  demanded  Miss  Barton,  "was  the 
Red  Cross?'  The  visitor  explained  that  the 
Red  Cross  was  a  society  founded  six  years 
before,  in  1863,  by  M.  Henri  Durant  of  Gen- 
eva. Its  purpose — supported  by  a  treaty 
which  nearly  all  the  nations  of  Europe  had  rat- 
ified— was  to  exempt  from  capture  those  car- 
ing for  the  wounded  on  battlefields.  Among 
the  wounded  it  recognized  no  difference  of 
nation  or  cause,  but  only  the  fact  that  they 
were  human,  and  in  trouble.  Thus  the  very 
armies  that  were  shooti™  each  other  down, 
would  at  the  same  time  co-operate  through 
their  medical  staffs  to  s^vor  victims  of 


166    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

either  side.  The  society  had  circulated  its 
leaflets  in  America.  Was  it  possible  Miss 
Barton  had  read  none  of  them? 

Miss  Barton  had  to  reply  that  she  did  not 
read  French  easily.  Moreover,  she  had  been 
too  busy,  both  during  and  since  the  war,  to 
occupy  herself  with  pamphlets  in  a  foreign 
tongue.  However,  she  did  heartily  approve  of 
the  principles  of  the  society.  In  fact,  she  had 
acted  on  that  principle  herself, — and  for  doing 
so  had  been  accused  of  disloyalty  to  the  na- 
tional cause. 

They  had  heard  as  much,  said  the  man.  She 
recognized,  as  they  did,  that  the  cause  of 
humanity  was  greater  than  the  cause  of  any 
nation.  That  was  the  very  reason  why  he  was 
addressing  her  now.  The  society  had  been 
trying  to  get  the  United  States  to  sign  its 
treaty;  but  the  United  States  had,  like  herself, 
been  too  busy  and  too  uninformed  to  think 
about  it.  In  short,  would  she  represent  them 
in  laying  the  matter  before  her  government? 

Miss  Barton  was  impressed  by  the  argument 
and  promised  the  International  Committee  of 
the  Eed  Cross  to  do  as  they  desired.^  Her  en- 
thusiasm was  rather  cool,  however,  for  issues 
more  urgent  were-  upon  "her.  In  1870  the 
Franco-German  war  broke  out.  Men  were 
being  killed ;  the  horrors  of  our  own  Civil  War 
would  be  repeated,  with  no  one  there  to  miti- 
gate them.  Should  the  woman  who  of  all  peo- 
ple in  the  world  probably  knew  best  how  to 
nurse  on  the  battlefield  flee  the  country  in 


CLAKA  BAKTON  167 

order  to  advocate  a  treaty  in  a  peaceful  land 
beyond  the  sea?  No — Miss  Barton's  rule  was 
to  do  the  thing  that  lay  nearest  at  hand. 

She  set  out  in  the  path  of  the  German  army, 
to  duplicate  her  deeds  of  the  American  war. 
She  performed  a  splendid  service,  especially 
at  Strashurg  and  Paris,  where,  advancing 
private  funds,  she  not  only  doctored  the  sick, 
but  fed,  clothed  and  employed  the  needy.  But 
while  she  labored  independently  as  she  had  at 
home^  her  relief  was  everywhere  aided  and 
sometimes  forestalled.  If  she  arrived  a  half 
hour  after  a  battle  commenced,  she  found  that 
in  some  shady  place  behind  a  hill  there  had 
sprung  up  already  a  village  of  little  white 
tents.  From  far  and  near  came  squads  of  men 
bearing  stretchers — and  on  every  man's  arm 
was  strapped  a  bright  red  cross.  They  car- 
ried their  burdens  inside  the  tents.  There 
stood  long,  low  tables,  with  heaps  of  shining 
instruments  and  clean  lint.  And  surgeons 
with  deft  fingers  turned  hastily  to  their  mourn- 
ful but  humane  work. 

The  numbers  of  the  men  and  the  speed  with 
which  they  moved  were  a  revelation  to  Clara 
Barton.  Of  what  use  were  her  feeble  efforts? 
The  ministrations  of  a  solitary  neutral  woman 
on  the  battlefield  was,  indeed,  but  a  clumsy  and 
antique  device.  The  profession  she  had  vir- 
tually originated  was  snatched  from  her!  A 
smooth-working  organization  had  assumed  it. 

-Clara  Barton,  however,  was  not  disconcerted. 
The  organization  would  be  the  thing  of  the 


168    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

future;  that  was  proved.  So  this  woman  of 
quick  adjustments  shifted  her  ground,  turned 
about,  and  calmly  and  wisely  put  her  hand  to 
the  helm  of  that  organization! 

"As  I  saw  the  work  of  these  Red  Cross 
Societies  in  the  field,'  she  writes,  "accom- 
plishing in  four  months  under  their  systematic 
organization  what  we  failed  to  accomplish  in 
four  years  without  it, — no  mistakes,  no  need- 
less suffering,  no  waste,  no  confusion,  but 
order,  plenty,  cleanliness  and  comfort  wher- 
ever that  little  flag  made  its  way — as  I  saw  all 
this  and  joined  and  worked  in  it,  you  will  not 
wonder  that  I  said  to  myself,  'If  I  live  to  re- 
turn to  my  country,  I  will  make  my  people 
understand  the  Red  Cross  and  that  treaty.'  " 

Her  resolution,  however,  had  to  be  deferred 
for  some  years  on  account  of  illness.  Mean- 
time, Dr.  Bellows,  of  the  Sanitary  and  Chris- 
tian Commission,  had  tried  to  perpetuate  that 
society  and  had  actually  founded  a  Red  Cross 
branch  in  New  York.  The  branch  was  dis- 
solved, however,  mainly  because  it  could  not 
secure  recognition  from  the  government  at 
Washington.  The  government  was  still  "too 
busy."  It  might  persist  in  that  condition  for- 
ever unless  some  one  stubbornly  demanded  a 
few  moments  of  its  precious  time.  Clara  Bar- 
ton went  to  Washington  in  1877  prepared  to 
act  with  the  necessary  persistence. 

There  for  five  years  she  hammered  at  the 
gates  of  legislation.  She  bore  letters  to  the 
President.  She  published  leaflets  for  distribu- 


CLAEA  BAETON  169 

tion  among  the  senators.  She  lectured  and 
wrote,  to  spread  her  novel  idea  among  the 
people.  She  lobbied  in  Congress,  winning 
over  influential  friends  one  by  one.  At  last, 
in  1882  under  President  Arthur,  the  conven- 
tion was  signed,  and  an  American  branch  of 
the  Eed  Cross  was  established — with  Clara 
Barton  as  its  first  president. 

It  had  been  a  remarkable  transition  from 
the  timid  little  girl  of  Oxford  to  the  world- 
famous  woman  worrying  Congress  into  an  in- 
ternational treaty.  Nevertheless,  her  last 
achievement  was  not  in  nature  different  from 
her  earliest  when  she  nursed  her  crippled 
brother.  She  still,  as  from  the  first,  was  for 
others  "absolutely  fearless."  "Soldiers  do 
not  die  painless  deaths,"  she  declared,  "the 
sum  of  all  human  agony  finds  its  equivalent 
on  the  battlefield,  in  the  hospital,  by  the  weary 
wayside,  and  in  the  prison/  Though  still 
somewhat  timid  in  the  presence  of  others,  and 
averse  to  public  speaking,  the  woman,  when  the 
occasion  arose,  could  face  and  convince  the 
most  august  body  of  men  in  the  nation. 

The  "American  National  Association  of  the 
Eed  Cross'  as  first  established  in  accordance 
with  the  treaty  of  Geneva  was  a  very  simple 
affair.  It  was  not  a  branch  of  the  government 
and  subsidized  as  such,  but  an  ordinary  benev- 
olent society  composed  of  men  and  women  who 
cared  to  walk  up  and  sign  the  constitution. 
It  had  no  income  except  what  someone  might 
contribute.  Miss  Barton  appointed  her  own 


170    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

officers,    who,   like    herself,    were    tmsalaried. 

But  now  when  the  woman  stopped  to  con- 
sider what  she  had  done,  her  heart  probably 
sank  within  her.  To  all  appearances  she  had 
squandered  five  years  for  nothing  at  all.  She 
had  her  Red  Cross  safe  and  sound.  But  what 
could  the  Red  Cross  do?  Our  nation  had  set- 
tled its  civil  quarrel  and,  on  account  of  its 
isolated  position,  would  seldom  go  to  war  with 
foreign  powers.  The  new  society  would  con- 
sequently become  a  mere  name  with  a  paper 
existence.  This  threatened  inertness  did  not 
suit  the  taste  of  the  energetic  leader.  Here- 
tofore, when  a  great  emergency  pressed  upon 
her,  she  had  simply  chosen  for  herself  an  office 
in  which  she  could  do  the  casual  and  tempor- 
ary work.  Now  she  was  officially  seated  in  an 
office,  a  high  office;  but  there  was  not  a  duty 
anywhere  in  sight.  The  solution  was  charac- 
teristic of  her.  She  created  duties  for  the 
office. 

"War,"  she  said,  "although  the  most  tragic 
is  not  the  only  evil  that  assails  humanity.' 
Almost  daily,  in  times  of  peace  the  papers  told 
of  distress  in  some  part  of  the  country,  as 
widespread  and  almost  as  acute  as  that  in 
times  of  strife.  It  was  no  powder  or  sword 
that  had  caused  the  suffering.  A  river  had 
overflowed  its  valley,  a  fire  had  ravaged  a  for- 
est, a  cyclone  had  turned  a  city  upside  down; 
and  the  people  were  houseless,  hungry, 
wounded — just  as  after  Antietam  or  Freder- 
icksburg.  Why  could  not  the  Red  Cross  treat 


CLARA  BARTON  171 

the  scene  of  these  calamities  like  a  field  of 
battle  f 

To  make  a  long  story  short,  Clara  Barton 
amended  the  Geneva  treaty  to  provide  for  Red 
Cross  aid  in  time  of  peace.  Of  all  her  prac- 
tical adjustments,  this  was  the  cleverest.  She 
who  had  always  adapted  herself  to  new  duties 
as  they  pressed  in  upon  her,  now  made  shift  to 
discover  new  duties  that  would  beseem  her 
office  and  her  taste.  It  was  also  her  last  ad- 
justment, for  this  time  she  had  a  work  that 
would  never  be  done. 

The  society  now  took  as  its  motto,  "People's 
help  for  national  needs."  Yet  no  " people "  be- 
longed to  it;  and  the  nation  of  people  did  not 
acknowledge  its  right  to  meddle  with  their 
needs.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  comparatively  few 
of  them  had  given  it  a  moment's  thought.  It 
remained  to  be  seen  whether  the  president 
could  induce  them  to  do  so. 

Now  Miss  Barton  was  residing  at  the  time 
at  a  sanitarium  in  Dansville,  New  York.  The 
citizens  of  the  town,  "desirous  of  paying  a 
compliment  to  her,  and  at  the  same  time  of 
doing  an  honor  to  themselves,  conceived  the 
idea  of  organizing  in  their  town  the  first  local 
society  of  the  Red  Cross  in  the  United  States." 
A  meeting  was  called  "attended  by  citizens 
generally,  including  nearly  all  the  religious 
denominations  with  their  respective  pastors." 
Miss  Barton  addressed  them.  A  constitution 
was  presented  and  signed  and  officers  elected. 

Almost   immediately   a   terrible   forest   fire 


172    HEKOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

was  reported  in  Michigan.  "So  sweeping  has 
been  the  destruction/  read  one  account,  "that 
there  is  not  food  left  in  its  track  for  a  rabbit 
to  eat,  and  indeed,  no  rabbit  to  eat  it  if  there 
were." 

Miss  Barton's  hour  had  come.  She  issued 
a  prompt  call  to  action.  The  young  society 
rented  rooms  and  unfurled  its  white  banner 
with  the  scarlet  cross.  Men,  women  and  chil- 
dren instantly  flocked  to  the  rooms  bearing 
gifts  of  clothing  and  food.  A  band  of  women 
inspected  the  articles,  stamped  them  with  the 
red  cross,  packed  them,  and  dispatched  them 
to  the  relief  committee  in  Michigan.  Money, 
too,  was  deposited;  and  that  this  might  be 
wisely  used,  a  special  agent  went  out  to  ob- 
serve the  condition  of  the  sufferers.  Mean- 
while, the  neighboring  city  of  Eochester,  hear- 
ing of  Dansville's  activity,  hastened  to  form  a 
similar  society,  and  to  send  money  and  a 
judicious  agent  to  the  field. 

A  little  later  a  cyclone  occurred  in  Louisi- 
ana. More  local  branches  sprang  up.  Then 
came  the  Ohio  river  floods,  and  still  more 
branches.  Miss  Barton  visited  the  scene  in 
person.  She  telegraphed  to  the  societies 
where  her  headquarters  would  be  and  there  the 
contributions  came  by  the  trainload.  She 
chartered  a  steamboat,  took  on  volunteer  as- 
sistants, and  "amid  surging  waters  and  crash- 
ing ice,  the  floating  wrecks  of  towns  and  vil- 
lages, great  uprooted  giants  of  the  forest 
plunging  madly  to  the  sea,"  she  herself  super- 


CLARA  BARTON  173 

intended  the  distribution  of  fuel  and  clothing. 

Thus  the  peace  society  of  the  Bed  Cross  was 
started,  and  thus  it  continued  to  grow.  Before 
long  there  were  local  branches  all  over  the 
country.  Even  then  the  national  association 
remained  essentially  the  same  as  on  the  day  of 
its  first  inception.  There  was  no  firm  organi- 
zation. When  a  disaster  befell,  Miss  Barton 
rushed  to  the  scene  or  sent  a  reliable  deputy. 
The  actual  state  of  things  was  announced  to  the 
country  through  the  press.  The  local  branches 
everywhere  forwarded  their  provisions  and 
money,  as  did  also  many  other-named  charit- 
able societies  and  individuals.  Clara  Barton 
or  her  aides,  with  volunteer  help,  dispensed  the 
benefactions.  They  made  report  directly  to 
each  contributor,  but  not  to  the  public.  The 
surplus  funds  were  put  in  the  bank  for  a  start 
in  the  next  emergency. 

The  Red.  Cross  society  was  present  at  the 
Johnstown  flood,  at  the  Charlestown  earth- 
quake, at  Galveston,  and  on  a  hundred  other 
fields  of  sudden  disaster.  It  gave  food,  cloth- 
ing, medicine,  lumber  for  houses,  tools  to  build 
them  with,  seed  to  sow  in  the  ground — and 
even  lessons  in  agriculture.  Thus1  it  helped 
thousands  not  only  with  fare  for  the  day,  but 
with  the  means  of  sustaining  themselves  in 
permanence.  In  1896  it  crossed  the  sea  to 
Armenia  which  had  been  laid  waste  by  the 
Turks,  obtained  a  permit  from  the  Turkish 
government,  and  rescued  great  districts  of  the 
country  from  starvation  and  disease. 


174    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

By  this  time  the  founder  of  the  Red  Cross 
in  America  and  the  originator  of  the  peace 
service  must  have  forgotten  that  the  society 
was  ever  intended  as  an  adjunct  in  war. 
Floods,  fires,  and  hurricanes  had  kept  her 
reasonably  busy,  while  no  American  army  had 
taken  the  field  in  good  earnest  for  over  thirty 
years.  But  at  last,  in  1898,  as  if  to  crown  her 
career,  a  war  did  break  out,  in  Cuba. 

At  the  President's  request,  Miss  Barton  and 
her  helpers  had  gone  to  the  island  to  work 
among  the  women  and  children  of  the  recon- 
centradoes.  When  hostilities  were  declared, 
they  took  possession  of  the  relief  ship,  State  of 
Texas.  Soon  came  news  of  a  battle.  "It  is 
the  Rough  Riders  we  go  to, '  wrote  Miss  Bar- 
ton in  her  diary,  "and  the  relief  may  be  also 
rough,  but  it  will  be  ready.'  They  proceeded 
to  Siboney,  put  in  order  both  the  Cuban  and 
American  hospitals,  hoisted  over  them  the  Red 
Cross  flag  and  turned  to  for  duty  in  the  oper- 
ating tents. 

Then  on  the  second  day  of  the  battle  of  San 
Juan  came  a  message  from  General  Shafter, 
"Send  food,  medicines,  anything.7  Wagons 
were  loaded  from  the  State  of  Texas,  during 
the  night,  and  driven  to  the  field.  "The  sight 
that  met  us  on  going  into  the  so-called  hospital 
grounds,"  says  Miss  Barton,  "was  something 
indescribable.  ...  A  few  little  dog  tents 
not  much  larger  than  could  have  been  made  of 
an  ordinary  table  cloth  thrown  over  a  short 
rail,  and  under  these  lay  huddled  together  the 


CLARA  BARTON  175 

men  fresh  from  the  field  or  from  the  operating 
tables,  with  no  covering  over  them  .  .  . 
and  in  the  majority  of  cases,  no  blanket  under 
them.'  There  they  lay,  now  scorched  by  the 
sun,  now  drenched  with  the  rain,  aching  from 
wounds,  and  with  little  or  nothing  to  eat  and 
drink. 

But  the  Red  Cross  nurses  tore  up  some  bolts 
of  cotton  for  blankets.  Then  they  built  a  fire- 
place, put  on  the  kettles,  and  began  mixing 
gruel.  "I  had  not  thought  to  ever  make  gruel 
again  over  a  camp  fire,"  said  Miss  Barton. 
"I  cannot  say  how  far  it  carried  me  back  in 
the  lapse  of  time,  or  really  where,  or  who  I 
felt  that  I  was.  ...  It  did  not  seem  me, 
and  still  I  seemed  to  know  how  to  do  it." 
She  did  know,  right  well;  and  there  she 
stayed  all  night,  and  the  days  following,  un- 
til the  patients  could  be  removed  to  Sibo- 
ney. 

Miss  Barton  later  carried  relief  to  the  fever 
camp  at  Siboney.  When  Santiago  was  occu- 
pied, the  State  of  Texas,  by  Admiral  Samp- 
son's permission,  was  the  first  American  ship 
to  steam  into  the  harbor.  There  Miss  Barton 
and  her  company  ended  the  Cuban  war  by 
stamping  out  the  yellow  fever  among  the  na- 
tives. President  McKinley,  in  his  message  of 
1908,  speaks  "in  terms  of  cordial  apprecia- 
tion' of  the  "timely  and  useful  work  of  the 
American  Red  Cross  .  .  .  under  the  able 
and  experienced  leadership  of  the  president  of 
the  society,  Miss  Clara  Barton." 


176    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

Throughout  the  war,  the  Eed  Cross  acted  as 
a  department  of  the  government,  as  it  really 
was.  But,  the  war  over  and  peace  activities 
resumed,  this  relation  was  again  forgotten. 

Clara  Barton  remained  president.  She  was, 
to  be  exact,  a  great  deal  more  than  president. 
She  was  the  Eed  Cross ;  and  the  Eed  Cross  was 
neither  more  nor  less  than  Clara  Barton. 
Outside  of  her  it  had  only  a  vaporous  exist- 
ence. It  was  "her  child, '  as  she  said,  and 
she  "naturally  and  willingly  provided  for  it.' 
She  furnished  space  for  its  headquarters  in 
her  own  home  at  Washington.  From  there 
she  received  and  dispensed  the  charities  of  a 
nation,  amounting  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars,  without  even  being  requested  to  pub- 
lish her  accounts, — an  example  of  personal 
leadership  almost  unparalleled. 

Toward  the  last  the  effectiveness  of  her 
business  methods  was  questioned.  And  on  her 
retirement  in  1904,  the  society  reorganized  and 
elected  Secretary  of  War  Taft,  its  president. 
So  the  Eed  Cross  of  Peace,  like  the  Eed  Cross 
of  War,  passed  directly  under  government 
patronage.  Miss  Barton's  "child,"  at  her 
death  in  1912,  was  the  adopted  child  of  the  na- 
tion. Her  personal  devotion,  however,  had 
already  planted  the  idea  of  it  in  the  hearts  of 
the  people  better  than  any  official  bureau  could 
do. 

Thus  the  little  girl  who  had  nursed  her 
brother  became  at  last  the  nurse  of  the  nation ; 
the  young  woman  who  had  protected  her  weak- 


CLAEA  BAETON  177 

ling  pupils,  succored  the  unfortunates  of  all 
the  world. 

She  had  not  aimed  so  high  when  she  began, 
for  had  she  been  so  visionary  she  would  prob- 
ably have  arrived  nowhere  at  all!  She  at- 
tacked practical  issues  always. 

"I  have  no  mission,"  she  says.  "I  have 
never  had  a  mission.  But  I  have  always  had 
more  work  than  I  could  do  lying  around  my 
feet  and  I  try  hard  to  get  it  out  of  the  way  so 
as  to  go  on  and  do  the  next." 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE 

SOMETIME  in  the  twenties  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  a  woman  was  walking  on 
the  beach  at  Newport,  when  she  met  the  Wards, 
a  wealthy  and  aristocratic  family  from  New 
York  City.  The  daughter  Julia,  seven  or  eight 
years  old,  was  not  bathing,  or  frisking  up  and 
down  the  level  sand,  or  basking  in  the  sun. 
She  walked  along  sedately,  her  hand  tucked  in 
that  of  her  father;  and  her  head  was  envel- 
oped in  a  thick,  green  worsted  veil. 

"Little  Julia  has  another  freckle  to-day,' 
the  woman  was  told.     The   dreadful   blemish 
had  appeared  on  the  "delicate  ivory  complex- 
ion" the  day  before.    But,  "It  was  not  her 
fault;  the  nurse  forgot  her  veil.' 

As  she  was  veiled  against  the  impertinence 
of  the  sun,  so  Julia — or  Miss  Ward,  as  the 
servants  respectfully  called  her — was  relieved 
of  the  necessity  of  physical  exertion.  For 
recreation  she  walked  with  her  mother  in  the 
garden,  and  every  afernoon  at  three  o'clock 
entered  the  big  yellow  family  coach  for  a  drive 
behind  fat  horses.  Her  nurse  occasionally  led 
her  out  to  where  she  could  see  the  young  girls 
of  the  neighborhood  skipping  rope;  but  it  i 
not  recorded  that  she  herself  ever  "ran 
through"  or  even  so  much  as  "turned.' 

For  Miss  Ward  had  to  be  reared  according 

178 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  179 

to  her  station,  and  her  station  was  high.  She 
was  born  May  27,  1819,  in  the  city  of  New 
York.  Her  father  was  a  Wall  Street  banker. 
Both  he  and  the  mother  came  of  distinguished 
families,  and  they  were  courted  by  the  most 
exclusive  society. 

Julia  did  not,  however,  blossom  freely  in  a 
social  way  during  her  early  years.  The  mother 
died,  and  the  father,  feeling  that  he  must  exer- 
cise the  vigilance  of  two  parents  at  once,  grew 
cautious  to  a  fault. 

"He  dreaded  for  his  children  the  dissipa- 
tions of  fashionable  society,  and  even  the  risks 
of  general  intercourse  with  the  unsanctified 
many,'  wrote  the  daughter  long  afterward. 
He  was  so  careful  in  selecting  her  associates 
that  often  she  had  none  at  all.  And  since  her 
sisters  were  much  younger,  and  her  brothers 
absent  at  boarding  school,  there  was  left  to  her 
just  one  course — to  become  a  student  of  books. 

Julia  was  taught  at  home  up  to  the  age  of 
nine,  when,  not  from  preference,  but  because 
no  governess  gave  satisfaction,  her  father  sent 
her  to  a  private  school.  Education  at  that  time 
consisted  mainly  in  memorizing  from  the  text; 
and  since  Julia  was  endowed  with  a  quick  and 
retentive  memory,  she  made  rapid  headway. 
For  languages  she  had  a  special  aptitude. 
She  had  spoken  French  almost  from  her  cradle 
— for  besides  the  man  who  gave  her  lessons  in 
conversation,  did  not  a  French  servant  dress 
her  hair,  and  a  second  mix  the  salad  for  din- 
ner? Italian  she  mastered  almost  as  early. 


180    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

And  her  father  wrote  in  a  letter  to  his  sister, 
"  Julia  knows  three  words  of  Spanish,  and 
talks  it  all  day  long.'  At  the  same  time  a 
master  of  dancing  came  to  the  house  to  "fin- 
ish" the  girl  in  that  art.  First  a  Frenchman 
and  later  an  Italian  was  retained  to  have  a 
care  for  her  musical  culture.  And  she  was  al- 
lowed to  exhibit  her  skill,  now  and  then,  be- 
fore a  select  coterie  of  uncles  and  cousins. 

It  may  be  conjectured  that  under  this  fash- 
ionable course  of  training  the  girl  would  not 
acquire  much  dexterity  at  the  various  forms 
of  housework.  "I  remember  when  a  thimble 
was  first  given  to  me,"  she  says,  "some  simple 
bit  of  work  being  at  the  same  time  placed  in 
my  hand.  Someone  said,  'Take  the  needle  in 
this  hand.'  I  did  so,  and,  placing  the  thimble 
on  a  finger  of  the  other  hand,  I  began  to  sew 
without  its  aid,  to  the  amusement  of  my  teacher. 
This  trifle  appears  to  me  an  early  indica- 
tion of  a  want  of  perception  as  to  the  use  o 
tools  which  has  accompanied  me  through 
life." 

Julia  was,  in  fact,  inclined  to  be  impracti- 
cal; and,  worse  to  come,  she  was  absent  and 
dreamy.  She  once  wore  to  school,  without 
knowing  it,  a  blue  shoe  on  one  foot  and  a  green 
one  on  the  other.  Her  mother  complained  that 
when  calling  on  friends  she  paid  no  heed  to 
what  was  going  on  around  her,  nor  did  she  at 
home,  if  her  own  word  is  true.  "In  the  larg 
rooms  of  my  father's  house,'  she  says,  ll 
walked  up  and  down  perfectly  alone,  dreaming 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  181 

of  the  extraordinary  things  that  I  should  see 
and  do." 

And  what  did  she  dream  of  doing  that  she 
should  be  impolite  to  the  neighbors  and  make 
herself  comical  before  her  schoolmates?  For 
one  thing,  naturally,  she  dreamed  of  writing, 
since  of  Milton  and  Byron  and  Shakespeare 
she  read  so  much ;  for  another  thing,  of  dresses 
and  balls,  and  all  social  gayeties,  for  which  she 
was  evidently  being  prepared,  but  of  which,  as 
yet,  she  had  caught  scarcely  a  glimpse.  And 
inevitably,  when  she  tried  her  hand  at  writing, 
she  would  treat  of  those  fascinating  scenes  in 
which  she  would  sometime  move.  Her  earliest 
printed  poem  relates  to  the  costuming  at  a 
certain  ball.  It  ends: 

Perhaps  mantillas  were  the  passion, 
Perhaps  ferronieres  were  in  fashion, — 
I  cannot,  and  I  will  not  tell. 
But  this  one  thing  I  wot  full  well, 
That  every  lady  there  was  dressed 
In  what  she  thought  became  her  best. 

At  the  age  of  sixteen  Miss  Julia  left  school. 
The  event  awakened  her  to  the  sad  fact  that 
time  was  passing,  and  she  resolved  to  have 
done  with  her  romantic  day  dreams  for  the 
present,  and  to  excel,  if  it  might  be,  in  her 
studies.  She  accordingly  laid  out  for  herself 
a  strenuous  course,  including  French,  German, 
literature,  history  and  philosophy.  For  each 
subject  she  set  aside  regular  hours  of  the  day ; 


182    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

and  lest  the  temptation  to  play  should  over- 
power her  in  these  hours,  she  coaxed  the  maid 
to  tie  her  fast  in  a  chair.  Her  brother  Samuel, 
returning  from  a  European  university,  brought 
a  library  in  which  she  could  browse  at  will. 
And  the  father,  for  the  special  benefit  of  his 
children,  added  a  spacious  art  gallery  to  his 
house,  and  filled  it  with  the  choicest  pictures 
obtainable  in  New  York. 

The  girPs  associations  were  such  as  to  foster 
her  natural  inclination  for  study.  With  Bry- 
ant and  Irving,  New  York  was  beginning  to 
preen  itself  on  its  literary  character ;  and  Julia 
Ward  met  and  spoke  with  these  men,  and  ad- 
mired them  with  the  rest,  in  the  society  where 
they  were  the  fashion.  Not  unnaturally,  as  she 
says, ' '  Through  all  these  years  there  went  with 
me  the  vision  of  some  great  work  or  works 
which  I  myself  should  give  to  the  world.  I 
should  write  the  novel  or  play  of  the  age. 
.  .  .  I  find  it  difficult  to  account  for  a  sense 
of  literary  responsibility  which  never  left  me 
and  which  I  must  consider  to  have  formed  a 
part  of  my  spiritual  make-up.'  Nor,  once 
aware  of  the  vision,  did  she  ever  allow  it  to 
slumber.  She  began  several  dramas — one  of 
them  founded  on  "Kenilworth'  — but  lost  con- 
trol of  them  in  mid-career.  A  brief  apprecia- 
tion of  the  poems  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  pub- 
lished in  the  New  York  Review,  was  spoken  of 
as  "a  charming  paper,  said  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  a  lady."  And  on  the  death  of  her 
favorite  music  master,  she  wrote  for  a  news- 


JULIA  WAKD  HOWE  183 

paper  some  descriptive  verses  which  were 
favorably  noticed  and  widely  copied. 

This  taste  of  print,  however,  and  her  delight 
in  voluntary  study  were  embittered  by  her  en- 
forced abstinence  from  social  pleasures.  The 
home  life,  under  Mr.  Ward's  jealous  eye,  con- 
tinued to  be  almost  severely  simple.  On  Sun- 
day, for  example,  the  children  were  expected 
to  sit  attentively  through  at  least  four  serv- 
ices, to  read  only  religious  books  and  sing  only 
hymns, — and  to  deny  themselves  to  all  com- 
pany. During  the  week,  the  family  would 
spend  the  evenings  together — Mr.  Ward  on 
guard — with  their  books,  needlework  and  music. 
A  lecture,  concert  or  party,  all  in  strict  propri- 
ety, might  occasionally  vary  this  routine. 

The  elder  son,  Samuel,  meantime,  had  broken 
away  completely  from  Mr.  Ward's  point  of 
view,  and  frequently  disputed  with  him  on  the 
question  of  social  intercourse. 

"Sir,"  said  he  one  day,  "you  do  not  keep  in 
view  the  importance  of  the  social  tie. ' 

"The  social  what?"  asked  the  father. 

"The  social  tie,  sir.' 

"I  make  small  account  of  that." 

"I  will  die  in  defense  of  it!"  proclaimed  the 
young  man. 

No  such  heroic  sacrifice  was  necessary;  but 
Samuel  did  go  a  good  deal  into  fashionable 
society,  and  his  brothers  with  him.  And,  with 
their  lively  table  gossip  tingling  her  ears,  Miss 
Julia,  who  had  a  youthful  passion  for  music 
and  dancing,  began  secretly  to  chafe  against 


184    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

her  father's  restraint.  To  learn  to  play  and 
sing  under  a  music  master,  and  learn  to  dance 
with  a  dancing  master  was  all  well  enough ;  but 
such  exercises,  to  a  young  woman,  were  not 
really  singing  and  dancing.  "I  did  not  desire 
to  be  counted  among  ' fashionables,'  but  I  did 
aspire  to  much  greater  freedom  of  association 
than  was  allowed  me.  ...  I  seemed  to  my- 
self like  a  young  damsel  of  olden  time,  shut  up 
within  an  enchanted  castle.  And  I  must  say 
that  my  dear  father,  with  all  his  noble  gener- 
osity and  overweening  affection,  sometimes 
appeared  to  me  as  my  jailor.' 

As  she  grew  out  of  her  teens,  however,  her 
father's  anxiety  somewhat  relaxed.  Young 
Samuel  married  into  the  wealthy  and  fashion- 
able Astor  family;  and  though  on  the  wedding 
night  Miss  Julia  was  ordered  home  while  the 
jollity  was  at  its  height,  she  really  counted  her 
freedom  from  that  hour.  She  often  visited  the 
Astor  mansion,  "made  delightful  by  good 
taste,  good  manners  and  hospitable  entertain- 
ment.' Then,  after  the  father's  death,  she 
went  to  live  with  Samuel,  and  the  ' 'social  tie" 
was  paid  all  the  homage  due  it. 

Someone  made  the  remark  years  later  that 
"if  she  were  on  a  desert  island  with  no  inhabi- 
tants but  one  old  nigger,  she  would  give  a 
party. '  The  Manhattan  of  1840  was  anything 
but  a  desert,  or  devoid  of  congenial  company. 
The  young  woman,  wealthy  and  handsome, 
witty  in  conversation,  and  charming  in  song 
and  dance,  queened  it  joyously  in  the  brilliant 


JULIA  WAED  HOWE  185 

circles  of  her  native  town.  "The  history  of 
the  next  two  years  would,  if  written,  chronicle 
a  series  of  balls,  concerts  and  dinners,'  she 
confesses.  ' '  These  years  glided  by  with  fairy- 
like  swiftness."  Miss  Ward  did  not  abandon 
her  studies  nor  the  idea  of  writing  the  novel 
of  the  age.  But  while  the  pleasures  of  society 
engrossed  her,  any  serious  literary  labors  were 
indefinitely  deferred.  She  wrote  charades  and 
clever  dramatic  skits  to  entertain  her  friends 
or  for  an  interlude  at  a  ball — but  never  any 
more  heavy  historic  plays,  like  the  one  on  the 
fall  of  Constantinople.  The  society  girl  had 
quite  absorbed  the  student  and  writer. 

"If  this  state  of  things  had  continued,"  she 
says,  "I  should  probably  have  remained  a  fre- 
quenter of  fashionable  society,  a  musical  ama- 
teur, and  a  dilettante  in  literature." 

The  fact  was  that,  unbeknown  to  Miss  Ward, 
her  fates  were  spinning  a  web  of  quite  a  dif- 
ferent color.  While  on  a  visit  to  Boston  in 
1841,  Charles  Sumner,  the  statesman,  a  particu- 
lar intimate  of  her  brother's,  often  called  upon 
her.  Mr.  Sumner  expatiated  upon  a  friend  of 
his,  Dr.  Samuel  Gridley  Howe,  who.  had  estab- 
lished the  Perkins  Institute  for  the  blind,  and 
had  taught  Laura  Bridgman,  a  blind  deaf 
mute,  to  make  use  of  language.  In  company 
with  Mr.  Sumner,  and  the  poet  Longfellow, 
Miss  Ward  drove  over  one  day  to  see  the  won- 
derful school  and  its  teacher. 

Dr.  Howe  was  absent  when  they  arrived,  but 
before  they  took  leave,  "Mr.  Sumner,  looking 


186    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

out  of  a  window,  said,  '0!  here  comes  Howe  on 
his  black  horse!'  I  looked  out  also,  and  beheld 
a  noble  rider  on  a  noble  steed.  .  .  .  He 
made  an  impression  on  us  of  unusual  force  and 
reserve." 

More  facts  were  soon  forthcoming  about  this 
interesting  man.  He  had  fought  with  the 
Greeks  in  their  war  for  independence, — bivou- 
acing  on  the  bare  rocks  of  the  mountain  side, 
and  dining  on  roasted  wasps.  He  had,  latterly, 
not  only  founded  the  first  school  for  the  blind 
in  this  country,  but  had  conducted  a  troupe  of 
his  pupils  through  several  states  and  influ- 
enced the  legislatures  to  build  other  schools. 
He  had  done  only  less  important  service  for 
the  feeble-minded  and  the  insane.  And,  along 
with  all  the  rest,  he  was  hostile,  heart  and 
mind — and  outspokenly  so — to  the  system  of 
negro  slavery. 

Altogether,  Mr.  Howe  was  a  romantic  and  a 
commanding  figure — a  man  of  energy,  who 
could  do  things  for  the  betterment  of  his  race; 
a  man  who  contrasted  splendidly  with  the 
devotees  of  fashion,  among  whom  Miss  Ward 
had  recently  moved,  and,  not  less,  with  her 
ideals  of  a  scholarly  or  literary  career.  * '  That 
he  was  indeed  a  hero,  the  events  of  his  life  suf- 
ficiently declare,"  wrote  his  biographer.  It 
did  not  take  him  long  to  become  a  hero  to  Miss 
Ward.  They  fell  in  love,  despite  a  discrep- 
ancy of  twenty  years  in  their  ages,  and  in  April, 
1843,  were  married.  She  perhaps  did  not  sus- 
pect that  for  a  girl  of  fashion  and  a  literary 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  187 

dilettante  to  marry  a  reformer  in  that  age  of 
reformers,  was  to  put  herself  in  a  very  serious 
predicament. 

The  couple  sailed  for  Europe,  where  the  fame 
of  Laura  Bridgman  had  been  heralded  by 
Charles  Dickens7  American  Notes,  and  they 
were  feted  by  many  of  the  celebrities  of  the 
time.  They  had  tea  with  Carlyle  and  Words- 
worth. They  were  guests  of  various  noblemen, 
at  homes,  and  at  theater  parties  and  balls. 
The  parents  of  Florence  Nightingale  enter- 
tained them  at  the  Embly  Park  mansion. 
Dickens  grew  so  familiar  with  them  that  he 
broke  through  all  reserve;  and  once,  at  a  din- 
ner, when  Mrs.  Howe  addressed  her  husband  as 
"darling,"  the  author  "slid  down  to  the  floor, 
and,  lying  on  his  back,  held  up  one  of  his  small 
feet,  quivering  with  pretended  emotion.  'Did 
she  called  him '  darling, '  '  he  cried. ' '  All  of  this 
lionizing  was  very  grateful  to  the  American 
belle,  the  "stately  Julia,  queen  of  all,"  as 
someone  described  her.  When  in  after  years 
she  was  asked  what  most  impressed  her  during 
this  visit  in  London,  she  replied,  "The  clever 
people  collected  there." 

Not  so,  however,  with  Dr.  Samuel  Howe; 
the  witless  people, — the  feeble-minded,  the 
ignorant  and  the  deformed,  were  the  ones  who 
most  impressed  him.  He  went  about  with 
Dickens,  it  is  true — but  he  went  to  Bridewell 
and  Newgate  prisons,  and  to  the  charity  school. 
He  accepted  the  hospitality  of  the  Nightin- 
gales; but  while  there  he  took  occasion  to  ad- 


188    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

vise  the  daughter,  Florence,  to  become  a  nurse. 
He  studied  schools,  workhouses,  prisons,  and 
asylums  of  all  kinds.  An  admirer  gave  him 
an  etching  with  the  inscription,  "From  a  lover 
of  truth  to  a  lover  of  truth.'  In  short,  the 
gay  young  bride,  like  it  or  not,  found  herself 
in  leading  strings  to  a  man  intensely  serious, 
an  out  and  out  philanthropist.  Without  miss- 
ing any  balls  or  theater  parties,  she  felt  con- 
strained occasionally  to  accompany  the  doctor 
on  his  rounds  to  the  public  institutions.  She 
wrote  a  humorous  travesty  in  rhyme  of  a  letter 
of  his  describing  a  blind  deaf  woman: 

She  has  but  one  jaw, 

Has  teeth  like  a  saw, 
Her  ears  and  her  eyes  I  delight  in; 

The  one  could  not  hear 

Tho'  a  cannon  were  near, 
The  others  are  holes  with  no  sight  in. 

"But  when  I  showed  it  to  him,  I  was  grieved 
to  see  how  much  he  seemed  pained  at  my 
frivolity. "  In  fact,  the  doctor  could  not  see 
the  point  of  that  kind  of  "humor;'7  it  is  doubt- 
ful if  he  could  appreciate  his  young  wife's 
charades  and  dramas  for  ball  room  consump- 
tion, or  for  that  matter,  any  part  of  the  gay, 
social  life,  that  she  thought  so  important.  He 
was  "pained"  at  her  frivolity,  and  she  was 
"grieved"  to  see  it.  The  reformer  had  begun 
to  reprove  and  sober  the  literary  dilettante 
and  the  frequenter  of  fashionable  society. 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  189 

Upon  their  return  to  America,  this  influence 
was  many  times  intensified.  They  lived  near 
the  Institute  in  South  Boston,  a  "  distinctly  un- 
fashionable" suburb,  remote  from  the  city,  and 
by  no  means  hand  in  glove  with  the  city's 
socially  elite.  "I  was  now,"  she  writes,  "to 
make  acquaintance  with  quite  another  city — 
with  the  Boston  of  the  teachers,  of  the  reform- 
ers, of  the  cranks,  and  also — of  the  apostles." 
For  Mrs.  Howe,  like  some  who  "marry  a  whole 
family,'  had,  in  taking  her  husband,  in  some 
measure  married  the  whole  race  of  reformers. 
Not  that  Mr.  Howe  consciously  tried  to  attach 
her  to  that  strenuous  band — he  even  forbade 
her  to  undertake  any  work  in  his  own  school. 
But  "reformers,  cranks  and  apostles"  were 
the  kind  of  men  who  naturally  grouped  them- 
selves around  him,  and  the  young  wife,  will  or 
no,  could  hardly  avoid  them.  "I  endeavored,' 
she  says,  "to  enter  reasonably  into  the  func- 
tions and  amusements  of  general  society,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  profit  by  the  resources  of  in- 
tellectual life  which  opened  out  before  me.' 

So  the  freest  thinkers  and  the  boldest  doers 
of  Boston's  golden  age  went  continually  in  and 
out  of  the  "Green  Peace"  homestead  of  the 
Howes.  Edwin  Booth,  Holmes,  Longfellow, 
Emerson,  Theodore  Parker  and  numerous 
other  men  of  letters  and  leaders  in  the  "tran- 
scendental" school  of  philosophy  found  there 
a  hospitable  drawing  room.  Garrison,  the 
abolitionist,  whom  she  had  never  seen  but  of 
whose  "malignity  of  disposition,"  due  to  false 


190    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

reports,  she  entertained  not  the  smallest  doubt, 
she  came  to  hold  in  great  esteem.  Wendell 
Phillips,  too,  she  warmly  admired;  and  when 
two  women  walked  home  with  him  from  a  lec- 
ture hall,  one  on  each  arm,  to  thwart  the 
violence  of  a  mob,  Mrs.  Howe  wrote  to  him  that 
"In  case  of  any  recurrence  of  such  a  disturb- 
ance, I  should  be  proud  to  join  his  bodyguard. " 

Now  Julia  Ward  Howe  was  always  suffi- 
ciently imitative  to  make  common  cause  with  the 
progressive  spirits  who  chanced  at  any  time  to 
be  around  her.  The  motto  of  her  life,  she  says, 
was,  "I  have  followed  the  great  masters  with 
my  heart. "  That  discipleship  in  these  years 
took  full  possession  of  her. 

For  a  time,  it  is  true,  the  cares  of  family 
life  interposed  themselves  between  the  young 
wife  and  her  dreams.  A  troop  of  active,  in- 
quisitive children  were  continually  storming 
up  and  down  the  house;  and  by  the  word  of 
those  same  children,  Mrs.  Howe  was  a  tender 
and  tireless  mother.  She  made  one  in  all  their 
games.  She  sang  them  endless  rhymes,  set  to 
her  own  music: 

The  little  donkey  in  the  stable, 
Sleeps  as  sound  as  he  is  able ; 
All  things  now  their  rest  pursue, 
You  are  sleepy  too. 

She  arranged  for  them  a  puppet  theater,  of 
which  she  speaks  in  a  letter  to  her  sister,  "I 
have  written  a  play  for  our  doll  theater,  and 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  193 

performed  it  yesterday  afternoon  with  great 
success.  It  occupied  nearly  an  hour.  I  had 
alternately  to  grunt  and  squeak  the  parts,  while 
Chev  (Mr.  Howe)  played  the  puppets/  Then, 
since  Mr.  Howe  regularly  had  his  friends  in  to 
dinner,  she  endeavored  tardily  to  repair  the 
defects  of  her  housekeeping,  devoting  one  whole 
summer,  for  example,  to  the  study  of  cookery. 
Yet  in  housekeeping  and  doubtless,  at  times,  in 
the  offices  of  motherhood  she  had  but  indiffer- 
ent success.  "I  was  by  nature  far  from  ob- 
servant, "  she  says,  "and  often  passed  through 
a  room  without  much  notice  of  its  condition  or 
contents,  my  thoughts  being  intent  on  other 
matters." 

Those  other  matters  were  her  studies — for 
she  cared  not  so  much  to  cook  for  her  husband's 
friends  as  to  talk  with  them.  They  were 
masters,  of  their  kind;  and  it  interested  her 
less  to  feed  them  than  to  follow  them.  Her 
children  remembered  her  as  always  deep  in 
German  or  Latin.  She  steeped  herself  in 
literature,  too,  and  in  history  and  philosophy, 
the  subjects  on  which  the  master  men  of  Boston 
were  wont  to  converse.  The  children  dared 
not  interrupt  her  during  her  study  hours, 
although  those  hours  frequently  stretched  over 
most  of  the  day.  She  formed  a  habit,  never 
afterward  relinquished,  of  committing  to 
memory  a  Latin  ode,  or  of  untangling  a  few 
pages  of  the  toughest  German  philosophy — not 
so  much  to  store  her  mind  with  ideas  as  to  sup- 
ple and  brighten  it  by  the  difficult  exercise. 


192    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 


"From  first  to  last,"  writes  her  daughter, 
"she  kept  her  mind  in  the  same  state  of  high 
training  that  the  athlete  keeps  his  body. ' '  She 
was  in  pursuit  of  the  master  minds,  and  she 
was  not  going  to  break  down  in  the  race  from 
lack  of  nimbleness  in  her  faculties. 

And  after  reading,  the  earnest  devotee 
turned  to  and  produced.  Those  days  were 
troublous  in  the  American  nation.  The  North 
and  South  were  swiftly  preparing  to  hurl  them- 
selves at  each  other's  heads  over  the  question  of 
slavery.  The  great  masters  had,  many  of 
them,  for  long  been  writing  passionately  on 
the  subject.  After  the  publication  of  "Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin/  the  lesser  masters,  not  to  men- 
tion those  who  had  no  talent  at  all,  rushed  as 
eagerly  to  print.  And  Julia  Ward  Howe  would 
not  be  likely  to  withhold  her  contributions. 

An  anti-slavery  newspaper,  The  Common- 
wealth, was  running  in  Boston,  and  Dr.  Howe 
one  winter  assumed  its  editorship.  Mrs.  Howe 
assisted  him.  But  he  seems  to  have  appropri- 
ated to  himself  the  political  department,  leav- 
ing to  her  only  the  social  and  literary.  She 
tried  the  scope  of  her  pen  somewhat  more 
freely  in  the  New  York  papers.  And  in  1854 
she  came  before  the  world  with  "Passion  Flow- 
ers," a  volume  of  poems. 

The  volume  contained  metrical  compositions 
on  themes  of  family  life,  the  Italian  and  Hun- 
garian struggles  for  freedom,  and  the  wrongs 
of  slaves  in  America.  "It  was  a  timid  per- 
formance upon  a  slender  reed,"  she  comments, 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  193 

"but  the  great  performers  in  the  noble  or- 
chestra of  writers  answered  to  its  appeal,  which 
won  me  a  seat  in  their  ranks. '  In  other  words, 
by  her  own  computation,  at  least,  she  had,  with 
a  bound,  overtaken  the  masters.  But  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  the  masters  awarded  her  the  seat 
ungrudgingly.  "I  dare  say  thy  volume  has 
faults  enough/ '  wrote  Whittier,  though  he  also 
commended  its  merits.  Emerson  acknowl- 
edged the  copy  sent  him  in  a  kind  letter;  but 
that  was  the  kindly  author's  wont.  Haw- 
thorne, who  flatly  disapproved  of  the  "mob  of 
scribbling  women,"  treated  "Passion  Flow- 
ers' with  severity.  And  a  modern  critic  ob- 
serves that  the  poetry  has  evaporated  from  the 
effort — and  "there  never  was  much  passion.' 
On  the  whole,  however,  Mrs.  Howe  could 
read  more  praise  than  blame  into  the  reviews. 
She  tried  again,  two  years  later,  with  "Words 
for  the  Hour.'  This  fell  farther  short  of  suc- 
cess than  its  predecessor.  But  the  woman  was 
still  emboldened  to  ply  her  pen — this  time  on 
a  drama,  "The  World's  Own."  The  piece  was 
produced  in  New  York,  but  owing  to  dramatic 
defects  did  not  remain  long  on  the  boards. 
Finally  she  undertook  to  write  a  play  for 
Edwin  Booth.  The  great  actor  consented  to 
perform  in  it,  the  manager  to  produce  it,  and 
"my  dream,"  says  Mrs.  Howe,  "was  very  near 
becoming  a  reality.  But  lo!  on  a  sudden,  the 
manager  bethought  him  that  the  time  was  late 
in  the  season ;  that  the  play  would  require  new 
scenery;  and,  more  than  all,  that  his  wife,  who 


194    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

was  also  an  actress,  was  not  pleased  with  a 
secondary  part  assigned  to  her.  A  polite  note 
informed  me  of  his  change  of  mind.  This  was, 
I  think,  the  greatest  Met  down'  that  I  ever 
experienced.  It  affected  me  seriously  for  some 
days,  after  which  I  determined  to  attempt 
nothing  more  for  the  stage.' 

In  good  truth  her  versifying  was  inspired 
too  much  by  a  desire  to  ape  the  men  of  genius 
whom  she  knew,  and  too  little  by  an  inner 
necessity  for  utterance.  If  she  would  insist  on 
tagging  the  great  masters,  it  would  have  ap- 
peared that  she  must  content  herself  with  doing 
it  at  a  considerable  distance.  In  the  early 
sixties  she  accepted  the  invitation  of  a  New 
York  newspaper  to  chronicle  the  season  at 
Newport.  In  one  less  determined  this  might 
have  implied  a  retreat  from  her  former  high 
ground.  In  spite  of  all  her  striving  she  was 
still  a  dilettante;  she  had  not  yet  reached,  and 
perhaps  never  could  reach  the  elevation  of  the 
masters.  She  was  a  society  reporter — what 
she  had  evidently  started  out  to  be  when  she 
composed  her  first  poem.  But  Julia  Ward 
Howe  ignored  the  implication.  And  her  day 
of  days  was  at  hand. 

Mr.  Howe,  as  has  been  said,  was  an  active 
anti-slavery  leader.  So  was  his  close  friend 
Sumner.  So,  as  the  war  of  words  in  the  fifties 
grew  hotter,  were  an  increasing  proportion  of 
the  visitors  at  Green  Peace.  John  Brown, 
who  intended  to  "devote  his  life  to  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  colored  race  from  slavery,  even  a 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  195 

Christ  had  willingly  offered  his  life  for  the 
salvation  of  mankind/  called  there  not  long 
before  his  raid  on  Harper's  Ferry.  John  An- 
drew, later  to  be  war  governor  of  the  state, 
came  often.  From  these  men  Mrs.  Howe  heard 
all  the  burning  gospel  of  abolition.  And  with 
them  she  willingly  cast  in  her  lot. 

Then  the  war  of  the  rebellion  broke  out. 
Governor  Andrew  often  took  refuge  from  State 
House  worries  in  the  Howe  parlor.  "I  seemed 
to  live  in  and  along  with  the  war,  while  it  was 
in  progress,  and  to  follow  all  its  ups  and  downs, 
its  good  and  ill  fortune  with  these  two  brave 
men." 

Nor  did  she  live  in  the  war  by  report  only. 
When  the  soldiers  killed  in  Baltimore — the 
same  attack  that  started  Clara  Barton  as  a 
nurse — were  brought  sorrowfully  home,  she 
saw  them  buried  in  the  King's  Chapel  ground. 
The  coffins  were  draped  in  the  national  flag. 
Moved  by  the  sight,  Mrs.  Howe  wrote: 

"Weave  no  more  silks,  ye  Lyons  looms, 
To  deck  our  girls  for  gay  delights: 
The  crimson  flower  of  battle  blooms, 
And  solemn  marches  fill  the  nights/ 

Of  this  the  first  two  lines  may  indeed  still 
echo  the  mind  of  the  society  reporter;  but  the 
second  two  indicate  a  swift  transition. 

And  now  the  horrors  of  the  war  came  thick, 
one  upon  another.  The  finest  homes  in  Boston 
sent  forth  their  sons,  and  received  them  back 


196    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

on  the  litter,  if  not  in  the  coffin.  Even  in  New- 
port, where  Mrs.  Howe  summered,  she  found 
the  streets  one  day  lined  with  carriages,  the 
passengers  of  which  were  white  faced  and 
silent. 

"Why  are  these  people  here?"  she  asked, 
"what  are  they  waiting  for?' 

"They  are  waiting  for  the  mail,'  replied  a 
bystander,  "don't  you  know  that  we  have  had 
a  dreadful  reverse?" 

Yet  again,  in  the  autumn  of  1861,  she  made 
a  visit  to  Washington.  The  Southern  troops 
had  forced  their  way  nearly  to  the  capital  and 
threatened  its  capture.  The  Army  of  the 
Potomac  was  encamped  round  about  the  city 
to  defend  it.  Troopers  clattered  continually 
to  and  fro.  "Ambulances,  drawn  by  four 
horses,  drove  through  the  streets,  stopping 
sometimes  before  Willard's  Hotel  where  we 
had  found  quarters.  From  my  window  I  saw 
.  .  .  the  ghastly  advertisement  of  an  agency 
for  embalming  and  forwarding  the  bodies  of 
those  who  had  fallen  in  the  fight  or  who  had 
perished  by  fever." 

The  feelings  of  the  woman  were  stirred  by 
these  sights  to  depths  she  had  never  suspected 
in  herself.  Her  country  was  fighting  a  terrible 
fight.  It  would  win,  perhaps,  but  at  unreck- 
onable  cost.  It  might  even  fail,  and  die — but 
it  would  die  gloriously  to  make  men  free. 
And  what  was  she  doing  in  the  conflict  ?  Other 
women  were  sending  their  husbands  and  sons; 
but  her  husband  was  too  old  and  her  son  too 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  197 

young.  Other  women  were  nursing  in  the  mil- 
itary hospitals  or  packing  relief  supplies  at 
home ;  but  she  was  too  much  hampered  by  chil- 
dren to  do  the  one,  and  too  inexpert  with  her 
hands  to  do  the  other.  "Something  seemed  to 
say  to  me,  'you  would  be  glad  to  serve,  but 
you  cannot  help  anyone;  you  have  nothing  to 
give,  and  there  is  nothing  for  you  to  do.' 
She  could  only  write  poetry,  and  that  with  ill 
success.  She  might  write  a  poem  now.  But 
what  would  that  amount  to  in  the  war! 

One  day  when  she  had  driven  out  with  some 
friends  to  see  a  review  of  troops,  the  party, 
to  beguile  the  return  drive,  sang  snatches  of 
the  popular  army  song,  "John  Brown's  body 
lies  a-mouldering  in  the  grave;  his  soul  goes 
marching  on." 

Her  minister,  James  Freeman  Clarke,  who 
was  of  the  company,  asked,  "Mrs.  Howe,  why 
do  you  not  write  some  good  words  for  that 
stirring  tune?" 

Let  her  tell  the  rest  herself.  "I  went  to  bed 
that  night  as  usual,  and  slept,  according  to 
my  wont,  quite  soundly.  I  awoke  in  the  gray 
of  the  morning  twilight;  and  as  I  lay  waiting 
for  the  dawn,  the  long  lines  of  the  desired 
poem  began  to  twine  themselves  in  my  mind. 
Having  thought  out  all  the  stanzas,  I  said  to 
myself,  'I  must  get  up  and  write  these  verses 
down,  lest  I  fall  asleep  again  and  forget  them.' 
So,  with  a  sudden  effort,  I  sprang  out  of  bed, 
and  found  in  the  dimness  an  old  stub  of  a  pen 
which  I  remembered  to  have  used  the  day  be- 


198    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

fore.  I  scrawled  the  verses  almost  without 
looking  at  the  paper.  .  .  .  Having  com- 
pleted my  writing,  I  returned  to  bed  and  fell 
asleep,  saying  to  myself,  'I  like  this  better  than 
most  things  that  I  have  written.'  " 

And  well  she  might  like  it  better.  The  poem, 
under  the  title,  "The  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Ee- 
public,'  was  published  soon  after,  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly.  It  attracted  little  notice 
then;  the  country  was  agonizing  over  its  war; 
of  what  account  were  a  few  lines  of  rhyme, 
printed  in  a  magazine?  But  a  certain  McCabe, 
chaplain  in  the  army,  read  it,  liked  it,  memor- 
ized it.  A  year  or  so  later  he  was  captured  in 
the  South  and  confined,  with  other  Union  men, 
in  a  large  cell  in  Libbey  prison.  They  were 
told  of  a  great  Union  victory.  They  broke  into 
rejoicings.  McCabe  recited  the  poem,  sang  it. 
They  all  sang  it,  in  chorus — with  what  effect 
from  the  tremendous  uplift  of  its  lines  may 
well  be  imagined !  From  that  the  Battle  Hymn 
somehow  took  wings  and  flew  through  all  the 
camps  of  the  army.  They  sang  it  in  bivouac 
at  night.  They  sang  it  on  the  march.  They 
sang  it  rushing  to  the  fight.  And  where  it  was 
sung,  it  counted  more  than  many  men  for  vic- 
tory. 

Mrs.  Howe  had  cause  to  think  well  of  the 
poem.  For  in  it  she  had,  for  once,  done  more 
than  follow  the  masters.  She  had  surpassed 
them.  The  literary  dilettante  had  become,  to 
the  extent  of  one  poem  at  least,  a  great  author. 

Speaking  of  the  success  of  the  Battle  Hymn, 


JULIA  WABD  HOWE  199 

one  of  the  author's  friends  said,  "Mrs.  Howe 
ought  to  die  now,  for  she  has  done  the  best  that 
she  will  ever  do."  So  far  as  authorship  went, 
the  saying  was  true.  But  the  woman,  as  she 
says,  still  felt  herself  "full  of  days'  works." 
And  that  also  was  true.  For  although  the 
literary  woman  had  played  her  sweetest  and 
farthest-sounding  note,  the  frequenter  of  fash- 
ionable society,  as  modified  by  the  "great 
masters,"  was  yet  only  tuning  up  her  instru- 
ments. 

Of  one  summer  at  Newport  Mrs.  Howe  re- 
lates a  significant  incident.  "I  felt  that  I 
had  read  and  written  quite  as  much  as  was 
profitable.  'I  must  go  outside  my  own 
thoughts,  I  must  do  something  for  someone,'  I 
said  to  myself.  Just  then  the  teacher  of  my 
sister's  children  broke  out  with  malarial  fever. 
She  was  staying  with  my  sister  at  a  farm 
house  near  by.  The  call  to  assist  in  nursing 
her  was  very  welcome,  and  when  I  was  thanked 
for  my  services  I  could  truly  say  that  I  had 
been  glad  of  the  opportunity  of  rendering  them 
for  my  own  sake.' 

And  again  to  quote,  "In  the  days  of  which 
I  now  write,  it  was  borne  in  upon  me  that  I 
had  much  to  say  to  my  day  and  generation 
which  could  not  and  should  not  be  communi- 
cated in  rhyme,  or  even  in  rhythm.' 

The  fact  was  that  neither  poetry  nor  the 
drama,  but  platform  eloquence  was  the  style 
of  expression  most  applauded  in  those  martial 
days.  Julia  Ward  Howe's  friends  and  mas- 


200    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

ters  were  famed,  many  of  them,  less  for  their 
writing  than  for  their  oratory.  Wendell 
Phillips,  Charles  Sumner,  James  Freeman 
Clarke,  Theodore  Parker,  even  Emerson  and 
Holmes  were  accustomed  to  sway  great  audi- 
ences. Moreover,  one  by  one  the  talented 
women  of  the  time, — Lucy  Stone,  Miss  An- 
thony, Mrs.  Stanton — were  mounting  the  ros- 
trum, in  the  cause  of  temperance,  anti-slavery 
and  the  like,  and  they  were  speaking  with  un- 
deniable power.  It  would  be  strange,  there- 
fore, if  Julia  Ward  Howe  did  not  find  in  her 
mind  some  leadings  in  the  direction  of  public 
speaking. 

Though  totally  ignorant  of  her  ability,  she 
could  not  long  deny  her  honest  promptings. 
"I  commissioned  certain  of  my  friends,'  she 
says,  "to  invite  certain  of  their  friends  to  my 
house  for  an  appointed  evening,  and  began, 
with  some  trepidation,  my  course  of  parlor 
lectures.'  She  read  careful  essays  of  her  own 
on  "Doubt  and  Belief,"  "Moral  Triangula- 
tion,'  "Duality  of  Character'1  and  so  on — 
topics  that  would  be  meat  to  the  most  trans- 
cendental of  her  listeners.  Informal  discus- 
sion followed  the  reading.  The  course  was  re- 
ceived with  some  favor,  and  the  adventurous 
author  repeated  it,  a  little  later,  in  private  and 
church  parlors  in  Washington  and  Newport. 

Then  in  1867  she  was  elected  to  membership 
in  the  new  Boston  Eadical  Club.  This  club 
met  in  some  private  house  once  a  month,  list- 
ened to  an  eminent  speaker,  and  then  good 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  201 

naturedly  tried  to  flay  him  in  debate.  Mrs. 
Howe,  determined  to  keep  up  to  the  high  plane 
of  the  meetings,  chose  her  subjects,  "Polar- 
ity," "Ideal  Causation"  and  so  on,  from  Ger- 
man philosophy.  The  Radical  Club,  appar- 
ently, relished  them.  But  where  she  regaled 
an  audience  of  ordinary  people  with  "Ideal 
Causation,"  they  all  nodded,  to  her  great  sor- 
row, and  one  was  reported  to  have  wondered 
"what  Mrs.  Howe  was  driving  at."  "I  laid 
this  lesson  much  to  heart,  and  .  .  .  deter- 
mined to  find  a  pou  sto  nearer  to  the  sympa- 
thies of  the  average  community,  from  which 
I  might  speak  for  their  good  and  my 
own. ' ' 

It  occurred  to  her  that  while  comparatively 
few  people,  and  they  the  elect,  ever  trod  the 
precincts  of  a  radical  club,  nearly  every  one, 
at  some  time  or  other,  went  to  church.  There- 
fore the  nearest  road  to  the  popular  heart  was 
by  way  of  the  pulpit.  Julia  Ward  Howe  ac- 
cordingly began  to  preach.  She  had  been  a 
constant  church  goer;  the  Bible  and  the  best 
pulpit  eloquence  were  familiar  to  her;  there 
was  every  probability  that,  in  an  age  when 
women  ministers  were  so  rare,  she  would 
preach  her  way  to  fame.  She  supplied  various 
pulpits  near  home  and,  on  a  trip  to  Santo 
Domingo,  headed  a  native  church  for  a  year. 
As  a  preacher,  and  a  preacher  only,  she  might 
have  filled  her  days,  but  for  a  new  inspiration 
that  presently  seized  her. 

The  forces  back  of  this  inspiration  had  been 


202    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

acting  from  long  ago.  As  early  as  1848, 
Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  had  called  a  conven- 
tion at  Seneca  Falls,  supplicating  for  women 
certain  privileges  formerly  thought  proper 
only  for  men.  Later,  the  freeing  of  the  slaves 
was  attended  with  earnest  discussion  of 
woman's  rights.  By  now,  those  once  so  revo- 
lutionary doctrines  were  preached  commonly 
enough.  None  had  heard  them  more  unwill- 
ingly at  first  than  Mrs.  Howe.  But  as  they 
began  to  make  way,  and  take  on  the  aspect  of 
a  sane  and  practical  movement,  none  cham- 
pioned them  with  greater  zeal. 

Her  change  of  front  cannot  be  better  de- 
scribed than  in  her  own  words.  Hitherto  her 
masters  had  been  men.  To  men  she  looked  for 
an  ideal  of  character,  and  to  the  verdict  of  men 
on  her  own  character  and  work  she  always 
bowed.  But  now,  "in  an  unexpected  hour  a 
new  light  came  to  me,  showing  me  a  world  of 
thought  and  of  character  quite  beyond  the  lim- 
its within  which  I  had  hitherto  been  content  to 
abide.  The  new  domain  now  made  clear  to 
me  was  that  of  true  womanhood, — woman  no 
longer  in  her  ancillary  relation  to  her  opposite, 
man,  but  in  her  direct  relation  to  the  divine 
plan  and  purpose,  as  a  free  agent,  fully  shar- 
ing with  man  every  human  right  and  every 
human  responsibility.  This  discovery/  she 
adds,  "was  like  the  addition  of  a  new  continent 
to  the  map  of  the  world. ' 

In  brief,  Mrs.  Howe,  at  the  age  of  fifty,  or 
thereabouts,  sighted  a  new  realm  of  experi- 


JULIA  WABD  HOWE  203 

ence,  and  chose  new  masters  to  follow  therein. 
And  as  the  literary  dilettante  became  at  last 
a  celebrated  author,  so  the  society  woman,  by 
the  same  knack  of  imitation  turning  into  an 
advocate  of  the  rights  of  her  sex,  would  finally 
make  a  notable  contribution  to  modern  prog- 
ress. 

In  the  late  sixties,  Mrs.  Howe  watched  with 
the  interest  of  a  traveler  and  a  linguist  the 
progress  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war.  Her 
mature  conclusion  was  that  the  war  had  been 
hatched  up  by  politicians  for  political  reasons, 
without  any  heat  whatever  on  the  part  of  the 
soldiers  who  fought  in  it.  The  war  had  been 
won  and  lost, — and  thousands  of  lives  had  been 
snuffed  out.  But  the  issues  of  the  war  might 
have  been  won  and  lost  by  a  pacific  act  of  arbi- 
tration, without  the  sacrifice  of  those  disinter- 
ested men.  The  killing  off  of  the  men  was, 
therefore,  plainly  murder.  Why  did  not  some- 
one interfere  to  stop  it?  Who  had  the  right  to 
interfere?  Why,  who  so  much  as  the  mothers 
of  the  men,  the  mothers  who  valued  their  lives 
more  highly  even  than  they  themselves  did? 
Well,  then,  if  all  the  mothers  of  men  got  to- 
gether and  protested  against  such  wanton 
waste  of  their  offspring,  could  they  not  put  an 
end  to  this  war,  and  indeed  bring  it  about  that 
war  everywhere  should  cease?  "The  august 
dignity  of  motherhood  and  its  terrible  respon- 
sibilities now  appeared  to  me  in  a  new  aspect, 
and  I  could  think  of  no  better  way  of  express- 
ing my  sense  of  these  than  that  of  sending 


204    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

forth  an  appeal  to  womanhood  throughout  the 
world. ' ' 

She  then  and  there  composed  such  an  appeal, 
in  French,  Spanish,  Italian,  German  and  Swed- 
ish, asking  women  to  assist  her  in  a  peace  con- 
gress in  London.  For  two  years  she  corre- 
sponded from  home;  then  for  several  weeks 
held  preliminary  meetings  in  London — in  a 
hall  of  her  own  hiring,  after  the  English  Peace 
Society  denied  her  its  platform;  and  finally,  in 
1872,  she  called  the  general  conference. 

But,  all  along,  something  had  been  out  of 
joint.  Women  generally  had  not  fired  up  with 
the  glow  of  her  own  enthusiasm.  Perhaps  the 
subject  was  foreign  to  them — it  did  not  seem 
probable.  Perhaps  so  sweeping  a  crusade, 
like  the  dramas  she  had  written,  exceeded  the 
scope  of  her  genius.  At  any  rate,  the  con- 
gress, while  fairly  attended,  came  to  nothing. 
And  "I  could  not  help  seeing  that  many  steps 
were  to  be  taken  before  one  could  hope  to  ef- 
fect any  efficient  combination  among  women.' 

Meanwhile  a  likely  movement  had  arisen 
nearer  home,  and  Mrs.  Howe,  who  had  by  this 
time  got  a  reputation  in  conservative  quarters 
as  a  runner  after  novelties,  was  easily  taken  in 
tow  by  it.  She  went  to  a  meeting  on  woman 
suffrage, — reluctantly,  for  she  had  heard  that 
none  were  suffragists  but  feminized  men,  and 
blatant,  masculine  women.  But  her  best 
friends  were  there — Garrison,  Phillips,  Clarke ; 
and  Lucy  Stone,  whom  she  abhorred  on  hear- 
say, she  now  saw  to  be  a  "  woman  pure,  noble, 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  205 

great-hearted,  with  the  light  of  her  good  life 
shining  in  every  feature  of  her  face.'  These 
speakers  quietly  disposed  one  by  one  of  the 
arguments  against  suffrage.  When  Mrs. 
Howe  was  requested  to  speak,  she  said,  con- 
trary to  all  her  previous  notions,  "I  am  with 
you."  "I  have  been  with  them  ever  since,' 
she  remarked,  late  in  life,  "and  have  never 
seen  any  reason  to  go  back  from  the  pledge 
there  given." 

For  some  years,  now,  woman  suffrage 
crowded  for  first  place  in  Mrs.  Howe's  mind. 
And  as  every  believer,  in  those  days,  was 
pressed  into  field  service,  she  was  soon  called 
upon  to  speak — first  in  Boston,  and  then  in 
many  cities  and  towns,  east  and  west.  Her 
standing  as  a  writer  and  a  society  woman 
helped  guarantee  the  tone  of  a  movement  then 
too  often  scoffed  at  as  vulgar.  She  was  not 
wanting,  either,  in  the  heroism  of  the  greater 
leaders ;  as  when,  in  a  tumultuous  meeting,  she 
said  to  the  other  speakers,  "Let  me  come  first 
in  the  order  of  exercises,  as  I  read  from  a 
manuscript,  and  shall  not  be  disconcerted,  even 
if  they  throw  chairs  at  us."  And  she  counted 
it  no  dishonor  to  be  sung  in  ballad,  with  Lucy 
Stone  and  Mary  Livermore,  as  an  old  crow. 

Yet  in  woman  suffrage  as  in  the  peace  cru- 
sade, she  admits,  "my  own  contributions  ap- 
peared to  me  less  valuable  than  I  had  hoped 
to  find  them. 7 '  She  had  to  speak  in  large  audi- 
toriums, who  had  modulated  her  voice  to  the 
narrow  space  of  parlors.  She  had  to  preside 


206    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

at  turbulent  conventions,  who  had  never 
learned  the  rules  of  debate.  Then,  too,  her 
acceptance  of  the  principle,  at  so  late  an  age, 
was  merely  a  feat  of  the  mind — she  had  not 
the  personal  reasons  that  filled  women  such  as 
Mrs.  Stanton  with  something  like  holy  fire,  and 
literally  drove  them  into  leadership.  The 
Mrs.  Howe  who  was  a  frequenter  of  fashion- 
able society,  but  who  wished,  even  in  that,  to 
follow  the  masters,  had  not  yet  hit  upon  the 
work  in  which  she  could  herself  be  a  master. 

Somewhere  about  1870,  Mrs.  Howe  was  bid- 
den to  a  parlor  meeting,  "to  be  held  with  the 
view  of  forming  a  women's  club  in  Boston.' 
The  invitation  was  issued  by  Mrs.  Caroline  M. 
Severance,  late  of  Ohio,  who  desiring  to  meet 
the  talented  people  in  her  new  home,  had  cogi- 
tated the  possibility  of  a  literary  and  social 
union. 

Mrs.  Howe,  while  never  averse  to  meeting 
notables,  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  have  a 
union  for  the  purpose.  She  gave  only  a  lan- 
guid assent  to  the  measures  proposed.  In  this 
meeting,  however,  and  in  others  that  followed, 
certain  arresting  ideas  were  voiced.  It  was 
not  a  question  merely  of  a  woman's  meeting 
the  great  ones  of  her  sex;  it  was  a  question  of 
meeting  anybody.  Women  were  too  much 
housed  up,  the  organizers  said.  They  might 
go  to  church  or  to  missionary  and  temperance 
gatherings;  but  beyond  that  they  had  no 
chance,  as  men  did  in  business,  professions, 
and  politics,  to  burnish  their  minds  by  inter- 


JULIA  WAED  HOWE  207 

course  with  their  equals.  Full  as  they  were  of 
energy  and  aspirations,  they  could  nowhere 
assemble  for  the  free  discussion  of  special  or 
general  knowledge,  hut  must  sit  at  home  and 
deliberate  on  dresses  and  dinners  and  children 
and  hired  help.  Now  those  in  attendance 
proposed  to  furnish  rooms  in  a  central  locality, 
and  keep  them  open  for  the  convenience  of 
women.  There  would  be  easy  chairs  and 
lounges,  books  and  papers  to  read,  a  hall  for 
social  or  literary  exercises,  and  possibly  a  tea- 
room— in  a  word,  a  common  ground  where 
women  could  commune  with  their  kind,  and  so, 
in  an  easy,  natural  way,  enlarge  their  stock  of 
wisdom  and  experience. 

After  all — Mrs.  Howe  grasped  at  the  thought 
— there  might  be  something  of  promise  in  this. 
Here  might  be  one  way  of  compassing  the  new 
era  for  women  of  which  she  had  dreamed. 
Her  own  ambition  as  a  producer  of  things 
cultural  had  of  late  receded  behind  her  ambi- 
tion as  a  promoter  of  reforms  social.  Yet  she 
still  studied  and  thought  and  wrote;  most 
women  did  not  do  so  enough  for  their  own 
good;  so  when  she  was  appointed  chairman  of 
the  committee  on  art  and  literature,  she  saw 
an  opportunity  by  no  means  to  be  despised. 
She  lent  herself  heartily  to  the  purposes  of  the 
club.  With  its  weekly  teas,  its  bi-weekly  lec- 
tures and  discussions  by  famous  thinkers — 
herself  more  often  than  any  other — and  its 
rarer  elaborate  socials  and  programs,  Mrs. 
Howe  realized  in  the  club  what,  a  few  years 


208    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

earlier,  would  have  been  to  her  the  ideal  life. 

This  association  was  called  the  "New 
England  Women's  Club."  It  was  not  the  first 
federated  society  of  women —  there  had  been 
one  in  Illinois  as  early  as  1833 — but  it  was  the 
first  one  called  a  "club,"  and  the  first  of  great 
dignity  and  influence.  Its  generally  accepted 
title,  "The  first  women's  club"  is  not  far 
wrong. 

It  did  not,  however,  long  stand  alone.  Only 
two  weeks  behind  it  came  "Sorosis,'  in  New 
York.  Then,  as  if  some  dormant  force  had  all 
at  once  awakened,  women  here  and  there  all 
over  the  land  began  to  leave  their  kitchens  and 
nurseries  and  their  silent  parlors,  and  troop 
together  in  some  convenient  place  to  read  and 
talk.  They  took  to  themselves  without  ques- 
tion the  apparent  motives  of  Sorosis  and  the 
New  England  Women's  Club.  Culture  they 
wanted,  and  culture  they  would  have.  But 
most  of  them  were  not  blessed  with  leaders  like 
Severance  and  Howe,  or  speakers  like  Emer- 
son and  WThittier.  Very  well  then,  they  would 
lead  themselves;  they  would  address  them- 
selves. So  women  with  only  an  elementary 
education  began  reading  papers  to  their  neigh- 
bors on  Grecian  vases,  the  history  of  China, 
and  the  poetry  of  Browning — all  subjects  under 
the  sun  that  had  any  flavor  of  the  literary.  It 
mattered  not  that  the  subjects  were  distant. 
It  mattered  not  that  they  were  abstruse.  It 
did  not  matter  even  that  the  papers  shame- 
lessly copied  the  contents  of  the  cyclopaedias  in 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  209 

the  village  library,  where  anyone  could  read 
if  they  would.  The  women  were  getting  cul- 
ture, and  they  were  glad.  But  people  of  more 
education  saw  how  far  they  were  over-reaching 
themselves.  They  were  deceived  with  names, 
and  not  really  scratching  the  surface  of  true 
learning.  Earnest  as  they  might  be  in  their 
quest,  they  were  generally  making  "  women 's 
club"  a  term  of  ridicule  and  reproach. 

But  meanwhile  things  in  Boston  were  taking 
a  new  turn.  The  New  England  Club  an- 
nounced a  program  of  "service."  The  women 
there  were  not  too  much  entranced  by  the  name 
of  culture ;  they  had  viewed  the  real  thing  with 
clear  eyes  already — and  it  was  not  a  thing  to 
worship.  Moved,  even  as  Mrs.  Howe  had  been, 
by  the  reform  spirit  of  the  age,  they  were 
anxious  to  make  themselves  practically  useful. 
They  had  been  organized  less  than  a  year  when 
they  took  measures  from  which  arose  a  horti- 
cultural school  for  women.  Their  committees 
inquired  into  the  possibilities  of  homes  for 
destitute  children,  infant  asylums,  co-operative 
kitchens,  laundries,  lodging  houses  and  labor 
schools.  "Although  the  committees  did  not 
organize  all  these  works,"  says  the  historian, 
"yet  the  impulse  given  produced  many  bene- 
ficial results  in  these  varied  directions." 

In  1870  the  club  formed  the  Friendly  Even- 
ing Association  for  working  women.  It  co- 
operated in  a  fair  for  a  hospital  for  women 
and  children.  It  raised  money  to  bring  Polish 
exiles  to  this  country.  And  so  on,  indefinitely. 


210    HEKOINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

Now  this  was  the  kind  of  thing,  on  a  small 
scale,  to  be  sure,  that  Mrs.  Howe  in  her  later 
period  had  wished  to  do.  It  meant  a  new 
sphere  of  action,  a  new  life  for  women.  Then 
in  1872  the  New  England  Women's  Club  elected 
her  its  president.  She  could  now  pilot  it  as 
she  would.  At  the  head  of  a  band  of  strong 
women,  committed  to  a  social  as  well  as  a  lit- 
erary program,  Julia  Ward  Howe  had  at  last 
come  gloriously  into  her  own.  And  her  reign, 
it  is  worth  noting,  was  to  last  forty  years. 

Speaking  of  her  abandonment  of  the  peace 
crusade,  Mrs.  Howe  said,  "Insensibly  I  came 
to  devote  my  time  and  strength  to  the  promo- 
tion of  women's  clubs  which  are  doing  so  much 
to  constitute  a  working  and  united  woman- 
hood." 

Insensibly  or  not,  she  did  it.  In  Newport 
she  formed  a  "Town  and  Country  Club"  for 
the  literary  lights  who  summered  there.  Her 
"club-loving  mind  found  sure  material  for 
many  pleasant  meetings,  and  a  little  band  of 
us  combined  to  improve  the  beautiful  summer 
season  by  picnics,  sailing  parties,  and  house- 
hold soirees.'  When  this  club  disbanded,  she 
promptly  filled  its  place  with  a  new  one,  the 
"Papertree."  At  another  time,  wishing  to 
furnish  her  daughter  some  intellectual  stimu- 
lus, combined  with  social  pleasure,  she  founded 
a  "Saturday  Morning  Club"  for  girls;  and  this 
not  only  lived  and  flourished,  but  was  quickly 
imitated  in  other  cities.  One  time,  in  Paris, 
she  noticed  that  the  students  of  art  and  medi- 


JULIA  WAKD  HOWE  211 

cine  were  generally  unacquainted  with  each 
other,  and  led  isolated,  lonely  lives;  she  in- 
vited them  to  her  lodgings,  and  organized  them 
into  a  social  union. 

In  1868  the  Association  for  the  Advance- 
ment of  Women  had  been  formed.  Ten  years 
later  Mrs.  Howe  became  president.  During 
the  next  thirty  years  she  directed  the  associa- 
tion— which  was  simply  a  women's  club  on  a 
national  scale.  It  held  its  three-day  con- 
gresses east  and  west,  north  and  south,  in 
nearly  all  the  principal  cities,  discussing  sci- 
ence, art,  education,  industrial  training,  and  so 
on,  in  their  relation  to  women.  And  the  con- 
ventions of  this  national  club  always  resulted 
in  the  formation  of  a  local  women's  club  in  the 
city  and  in  those  round  about.  Mrs.  Howe, 
mother  of  clubs,  was  causing  her  progeny  to 
multiply  a  thousandfold. 

And,  naturally,  these  clubs  of  her  calling 
flew  the  newer  banner  of  social  service.  They 
did  not  relinquish  their  studies;  but  they 
brought  those  studies  nearer  home,  and  took 
them  up  with  more  deliberation;  and,  besides, 
in  whatever  out-of-the-way  corner  of  the  land 
they  were  established,  they  began  to  look  about 
in  that  corner  for  any  social  evils — child  labor, 
impure  milk,  unsanitary  housing,  what  not — 
that  they  might  correct.  Where  they  had  the 
franchise,  they  voted.  Where  they  had  it  not, 
they  could  still  mould  public  opinion.  And  in 
their  capacity  as  buyers  for  the  home  they 
could  blacklist  so  effectively  as  to  bring  some 


212    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

things  to  pass  more  quickly  than  either  public 
opinion  or  the  vote.  Before  many  years  there 
would  be  nearly  a  million  American  women  in 
clubs,  all  combined  in  a  national  federation, 
and  recognized  as  one  of  the  nation's  most 
potent  forces  for  good.  This  result  was  prob- 
ably due  more  to  Julia  Ward  Howe  than  to  any 
other  woman. 

In  fine,  it  seemed  that  the  part  of  Mrs.  Howe 
,that  was  a  society  woman  had  finally  fastened 
upon  the  activity  that  was  peculiarly  hers. 
Dr.  Holmes  had  once  said  to  her,  "Mrs.  Howe, 
I  consider  you  eminently  cluhable."  And  that 
was  about  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter. 
After  all  her  experimentings  with  reform,  she 
never  shook  off  the  characteristics  of  the  New 
York  belle;  but  she  so  far  sobered  and  ampli- 
fied them  that  wherever  she  went  she  changed 
drawing-rooms  into  schools  and  council  cham- 
bers, and  fashionable  women  into  students 
anxious  for  the  improvement  of  their  minds 
and  the  betterment  of  all  mankind.  Social 
spirited,  socially  capable,  and  at  the  same  time 
ambitious  to  excel  both  in  speculative  thought 
and  in  practical  reform,  she  was  indeed  emi- 
nently clubable — the  one  person  best  qualified 
to  band  all  women  into  societies  for  self  culture 
and  social  service.  In  that,  as  in  writing  the 
Battle  Hymn,  she  went  beyond  any  master  she 
had  followed  and  made  an  original  contribu- 
tion to  modern  progress. 

Mrs.  Howe  lived  to  the  age  of  ninety-one, 
and  as  her  contemporaries  one  by  one  dropped 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE  213 

away,  the  veneration  of  the  young  for  an  older, 
heroic  generation  came  to  center  upon  her,  the 
only  surviving  member.  Her  distinction  as  the 
" grand  old  woman,"  the  " first  lady,'  the 
"American  queen"  was  firmly  entrenched. 
She  became  a  kind  of  an  institution,  a  reposi- 
tory of  the  spirit  of  a  vanished  age.  She  was 
revered  for  the  people  and  causes  she  repre- 
sented, as  her  Battle  Hymn  was  sung — but 
still  with  renewed  fire, — for  the  national  spirit 
of  freedom  that  had  brought  it  forth.  Peopte 
came  on  pilgrimage  to  see  her,  as  they  might  to 
a  historic  monument.  Audiences  rose  in  re- 
spect when  she  entered  a  theater.  An  auto- 
graph copy  of  the  Battle  Hymn  was  considered 
the  choicest  of  personal  relics  or  the  rarest 
contribution  for  a  magazine. 

Yet  Julia  Ward  Howe  did  not  precisely  out- 
live her  age.  When  someone  asked  her,  at 
ninety-one  years,  for  a  motto  for  the  women 
of  America,  she  replied  promptly,  "Up  to 
date!"  And  to  the  last  she  was  herself  up  to 
date.  The  vigor  and  alertness  of  her  mind 
seem  never  to  have  waned.  The  poetic  output 
of  her  last  year,  critics  say,  was  not  only  as 
felicitous  as  that  of  any  year,  but  it  was  as 
modern  and  timely;  with  the  centenary  trib- 
utes so  often  asked  of  her,  she  could  skillfully 
weave  in  allusions  to  the  events  of  the  present 
day — the  latest  march  of  discovery,  the  newest 
development  in  science,  industry,  or  education. 
She  still  presided  at  the  meetings  of  the  New 
England  Women's  Club  and  the  Boston 


214    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

Author's  Club;  and  though  she  could  not  hear 
a  word  of  the  debate,  when  her  secretary 
quoted  to  her  the  gist  of  it,  she  would  state  her 
views,  as  fresh  and  contemporary  as  those  of 
the  youngest  member. 

In  fact,  the  trait  in  Mrs.  Howe  that  exalted 
the  literary  dilettante  and  the  society  belle, 
exalted  also  the  failing,  aged  woman  of  four 
score  and  ten  years.  The  trait  that  had  made 
her  great  in  one  age  made  her  great  also  in 
the  next — and  would  do  so  in  any.  With  small 
originality  of  her  own,  she  was  yet  always 
eagerly  receptive  of  the  newest  and  best.  And 
with  her  sturdy  and  well-preserved  strength 
she  "followed  the  great  masters  with  her 
heart." 

That  motto  and  one  other  suffice  to  frame 
her  picture.  She  was  comparatively  rich,  and 
had  no  need  to  work,  nor  seldom  did  work  for 
money.  Yet,  speaking  in  a  lecture  of  the  idle 
lives  of  some  women,  she  once  said,  "If  God 
works,  madam,  you  can  afford  to  work  also.' 
Julia  Ward  Howe  never  rested  from  work. 
Therefore  she  never  ceased  to  win. 


FRANCES  WILLARD 


FRANCES  E.  WILLABD 

FRANCES  E.  WILLARD  at  seven  years  of 
age  traveled  five  hundred  miles  overland, 
from  Ohio  to  Wisconsin,  in  a  prairie  schooner. 
Her  father  drove  the  foremost  wagon,  her 
brother  the  next,  and  her  mother  the  last. 
Beside  the  mother,  through  all  that  jolting, 
tedious  journey  huddled  Frances  and  her  sister 
among  a  heap  of  pillows,  on  the  father's  old 
writing  desk.  They  were  a  pioneer  family 
going  boldly  forth  to  experiment  with  life  after 
a  new  mode,  upon  the  great  frontier. 

Frances  had  been  born  September  28,  1839, 
at  Churchville,  New  York.  Her  parents  traced 
their  ancestry  back  through  several  centuries 
of  pure  English  stock.  They  had  both  taught 
school  successfully  in  York  state.  But  when 
Frances  was  two  years  old,  a  wave  of  the  great 
westward  immigration  overtook  them,  as  it  did 
so  many  of  the  strongest  and  best  in  those 
days.  Their  first  stage  terminated  at  Oberlin, 
Ohio,  where  the  ambitious  parents  invested  five 
years  in  study.  Later,  the  father's  ill  health 
called  for  a  change  of  climate  and  an  outdoor 
occupation — hence  the  second  stage  of  their 
journey,  and  their  settlement  on  the  "  Forest 
Home"  farm  near  Janesville,  Wisconsin. 

Their  picturesque  dwelling  here  is  charm- 
ingly described  by  Miss  Willard.  "The  bluffs 

215 


216    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

.  .  .  rose  about  it  on  the  right  and  left. 
Groves  of  oak  and  hickory  were  on  either 
hand;  a  miniature  forest  of  evergreens  almost 
concealed  the  cottage  from  the  view  of  pass- 
ers-by. The  air  was  laden  with  the  perfume 
of  flowers.  Through  the  thick  and  luxuriant 
growth  of  shrubbery  were  paths  which  strayed 
off  aimlessly,  tempting  the  feet  of  the  curious 
down  their  mysterious  aisles."  And,  all 
about,  spread  the  vast,  level,  sun-drenched 
fields  of  prairie  grain. 

In  these  surroundings  Frances  dwelt  for 
twelve  years,  a  healthy,  exuberant  country  girl. 
In  the  happiest  relations  with  her  sister  and 
brother  and  her  parents,  she  was  early  imbued 
with  the  ideals  of  a  well-ordered  American 
family.  She  grew  up  in  a  perfect  pioneer 
home.  And  the  pioneer  home  of  that  day  had 
no  superior. 

The  two  girls,  Frances  and  Mary,  were  not 
hampered  in  their  development  by  the  dictates 
of  "  society. "  They  were  blissfully  ignorant 
of  tight  shoes  and  corsets  and  new-fangled 
bonnets,  and  wore,  the  year  round,  plain  flan- 
nel costumes  of  athletic  cut.  They  early  sub- 
scribed to  the  total  abstinence  pledge,  as  writ- 
ten on  a  blank  leaf  of  the  family  Bible : 

To  quench  our  thirst  we'll  always  bring 
Cold  water  from  the  well  or  spring, 

So  here  we  pledge  perpetual  hate 
To  all  that  can  intoxicate. 


On    the    promise    of    a    reward    from    the 


FRANCES  E.  WILLAED  217 

parents,  they  vowed  to  drink  no  tea  or  coffee 
until  they  came  of  age.  They  ate  heartily, 
slept  long,  shunned  all  intemperate  habits,  and 
thus,  unconsciously,  "stored  up  electricity  for 
the  future." 

Friends  and  neighbors  were  few  in  that  com- 
munity, and  so  the  girls  in  their  outdoor 
frolics  were  naturally  much  in  company  with 
their  older  brother,  Oliver.  There  was  one 
historic  fight  where,  behind  a  stockade  of 
chairs,  they  resisted  a  band  of  savages,  con- 
sisting of  two  boys  and  a  dog;  and  where 
Frances,  wise  in  strategy,  ordered  to  "have 
ready  a  piece  of  spare-rib  to  entice  the  dog 
away  from  those  two  dreadful  Indians.'  On 
the  Fourth  of  July  the  children  celebrated  at 
home  with  processions,  speeches  and  songs. 
Often  they  saddled  the  goat  with  a  pack  of  eat- 
ables and  trudged  away  to  a  hillside  spring  for 
luncheon ;  and  once  they  were  ringleaders  in  an 
effort  to  subdue  the  calf  to  harness.  In  work  as 
well  as  play  there  were  but  small  distinctions 
between  boy  and  girl.  Frances  could  feed 
poultry  and  herd  sheep  like  an  expert.  In  fact 
she  rather  disliked  indoor  tasks  and  acquired 
a  better  skill  with  the  rake  and  hoe  than  with 
the  frying  pan  and  needle. 

In  this  intimacy  with  her  brother  was 
grounded  her  notion  of  what  society  ought  to 
be.  "A  boy  whose  sister  knows  everything  he 
does  will  be  far  more  modest,  genial  and  pleas- 
ant to  have  about, ' '  she  once  said,  i  l  and  it  will 
be  a  great  improvement  to  the  sister  also." 


218    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGRESS 

There  was  one  sphere  which  the  brother  en- 
tered, however,  into  which  she  could  not  go. 
The  father  came  home  one  night  full  of  news 
about  the  prohibition  law  in  Maine.  "I  won- 
der if  poor,  rum-cursed  Wisconsin  will  ever 
get  a  law  like  that?"  he  said. 

"And  mother  rocked  a  while  in  silence  and 
then  she  gently  said,  'Yes,  Josiah;  there'll  be 
such  a  law  all  over  the  land  some  day,  when 
women  vote.' 

"That  was  a  seed  thought  in  the  girl's  brain 
and  heart.  Years  passed  on  in  which  nothing 
more  was  said  upon  this  dangerous  theme. 
My  brother  grew  to  manhood  and  soon  after 
he  was  twenty-one  years  old  he  went  with  his 
father  to  vote.  Standing  by  the  window,  a  girl 
of  sixteen  years,  I  looked  out  as  they  drove 
away,  my  father  and  my  brother,  and  I  felt  a 
strange  ache  in  my  heart,  and  tears  sprang  to 
my  eyes.  Turning  to  my  sister  Mary  I  saw 
that  the  dear  little  innocent  seemed  wonder- 
fully sober,  too. 

"I  said, V Don't  you  wish  we  could  go  with 
them  when  we  are  old  enough?  Don't  we  love 
our  country  just  as  well  as  they  do?' 

"And  her  little  frightened  voice  piped  out, 
'Yes,  of  course,  we  ought.  Don't  I  know  that? 
But  you  mustn't  tell  a  soul — not  mother,  even; 
we  should  be  called  'strong-minded!'  " 

And  in  all  the  years  afterward  she  "kept 
these  things  and  many  others  like  them,  and 
pondered  them  in  her  heart.'  There  was 
plenty  to  do,  however,  without  voting.  The 


FEANCES  E.  WILLAED  219 

childish  energy,  bent  on  self  amusement,  broke 
out  ever  in  fresh  and  original  forms.  The  girls 
practiced  music,  botanized  and  sketched  out-of- 
doors,  and  Frances,  in  her  " Eagle's  Nest"  at 
the  top  of  an  oak  tree,  wrote  a  lengthy  novel 
of  adventure.  Her  chief  pleasure,  though,  was 
to  plan  and  manage  the  games  of  the  other  chil- 
dren. She  headed  several  clubs  and  drew  up 
rules  for  them,  such  excellent  rules  as  "  There 
shall  always  be  something  good  to  eat,'  and 
"We  hereby  choose  Fred  as  our  dog,  although 
once  in  a  while  we  may  take  Carlo.  Carlo  can 
go  when  he  has  sense  enough. '  And  there  is  a 
formal  document  in  which  Mary  pledges  to 
forego  the  use  of  "Frank's"  desk.  "If  I 
break  this  promise  I  will  let  the  said  F.  W. 
come  into  my  room,  and  go  to  my  trunk  or  go 
to  any  place  where  I  keep  my  things  and  take 
anything  of  mine  she  likes.  These  things  I 
promise  upon  my  most  sacred  honor."  Evi- 
dently the  youthful  Frances  enjoyed  running 
her  little  world  after  her  own  mind. 

The  parents  at  first  fitted  up  a  schoolroom 
in  the  house,  and,  to  eke  out  the  instruction 
they  gave,  called  in  a  young  woman  from  the 
east.  Not  till  she  was  fourteen  did  Frances 
enter  a  real  schoolhouse — the  first  one  built  in 
that  region,  an  affair  of  logs  that  looked  like  a 
"big  ground  nut."  Yet  she  probably  had  bet- 
ter guidance,  on  the  whole,  than  public  school 
pupils  of  the  period. 

Her  education,  it  should  also  be  noted,  was 
blended  with  her  religious  growth.  The  Bible 


220    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

was  her  first  book,  and  Pilgrim's  Progress  her 
second;  and  the  lullabys  she  heard  in  her 
cradle  were  evangelical  hymns.  The  family 
drove  to  church  in  the  carry-all  on  Sabbath 
morning,  in  good  old  country  fashion,  and  the 
parents  reminded  the  girl  daily  of  God  and  of 
His  care  for  her. 

In  those  parents,  after  all  is  said,  more  than 
in  all  else,  consisted  the  perfection  of  the 
Willard  home.  The  mother,  in  particular, 
sacrificed  herself  wholly  to  her  boy  and  girls. 
"I  had  many  ambitions,"  she  said,  "but  I  dis- 
appeared from  the  world  that  I  might  reappear 
at  some  future  day  in  my  children.7' 

Mrs.  Willard,  as  was  said,  entertained  some 
novel  "strong-minded"  ideas  on  the  subject 
of  votes  for  women.  But  if  she  believed 
women  ought  to  have  all  the  privileges  of  men 
in  politics,  it  was  only  that  they  might  be  equal 
in  the  home;  and  because  two  equal  heads  in 
counsel  beside  the  hearth  could  ennoble  family 
life  beyond  any  standard  known  in  history. 
She  believed  one  sex  could  improve  as  much  as 
the  other.  Said  the  daughter  in  later  years, 
"If  my  dear  mother  did  me  one  crowning  kind- 
ness it  was  in  making  me  believe  that  next  to 
being  an  angel  the  greatest  bestowment  of  God 
is  to  make  one  a  woman.'  And  to  the  truth 
of  this  the  mother  testified  best  by  the  singular 
sweetness  and  unselfishness  of  her  own  life. 

Up  to  the  age  of  fourteen,  then,  Frances 
Willard 's  outlook  was  bounded  by  the  limits  of 
her  Wisconsin  home  and  farm.  But  it  was  a 


FRANCES  E.  WILLARD  221 

beautiful  home,  where  father  and  mother  coun- 
seled sensibly  together,  where  every  healthful 
activity  was  stimulated,  and  where  man  and 
woman,  boy  and  girl  shared  sympathetically 
each  other's  pursuits,  and  all,  in  a  kind, 
friendly  way  tried  to  perfect  themselves  as  a 
family.  So  far  as  Frances  knew,  the  whole 
world  was  laid  out  in  the  same  pleasing 
fashion. 

But  this  home  life  had  to  end.  One  rainy 
Sunday  when  the  family  stayed  from  church, 
and  when  the  long,  lonesome  hours  dragged 
heavily,  she  cried  out  in  querulous  tones : 

"I  wonder  if  we  shall  ever  know  anything, 
see  anybody  or  go  anywhere?7 

"Why  do  you  wish  to  go  away?"  asked 
Mary. 

"Oh,  we  must  learn,"  she  said,  "must  grow, 
and  must  achieve;  it  is  such  a  big  world  that 
if  we  don't  begin  at  it  we  shall  never  catch  up 
with  the  rest." 

She  wanted  to  explore  the  world,  and  to  re- 
discover in  it  the  beauties  of  her  own  home. 
But  unfortunately  such  beauties  were  not 
there. 

In  the  little  log  school  house,  Miss  Frances 
studied  principally  the  three  K's.  The  Arith- 
metic she  minced  over,  but  she  took  the  read- 
ing and  writing  with  a  good  relish.  She  read 
Don  Quixote,  and  the  whole  of  Shakespeare, 
making  as  she  went  along  an  original  note- 
book commentary.  Aside  from  these,  all  her 
books,  such  as  Marcus  Aurelius  and  Epictetus, 


222    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

had  a  moralistic  twist.  She  was  forbidden 
novels  until  her  eighteenth  birthday;  then,  how- 
ever, to  her  father's  consternation,  she  avowed 
herself  free  to  obey  Jehovah  only,  and  delib- 
erately sat  down  for  an  afternoon  with  the 
dreaded  Ivanhoe. 

In  her  fifteenth  year  Frances,  and  her  sister, 
attended  a  select  school  in  Janesville,  and  in 
her  eighteenth,  a  Milwaukee  female,  college. 
Frances '  ambition  in  these  years  pointed  to- 
ward a  literary  career.  She  declaimed  before 
the  school  on  "Originality  of  Thought  and 
Action.'  And  she  put  her  own  original 
thoughts  into  action  by  editing  the  school 
paper  unusually  well,  and  winning  a  prize  from 
the  Prairie  Farmer  by  an  article  on  the  "Em- 
bellishment of  the  Country  Home." 

Her  last  school  was  the  Northwestern 
Female  College  at  Evanston,  Illinois,  where 
she  registered  in  1858.  In  the  strange  envir- 
onment she  was  at  first  shy,  and  held  herself 
aloof;  and  the  students,  seeing  only  the  out- 
side, thought  her  haughty  and  independent. 
But  when  it  came  to  recitations  her  seeming  in- 
difference melted  away.  She  soon  outshone 
most  of  her  rivals  in  scholarship.  She  became 
editor  of  the  college  paper,  and  a  leader  in  the 
literary  clubs.  And  long  before  graduation  it 
was  known  that  she  would  take  the  honors  as 
valedictorian. 

With  all  this,  the  girl  had  the  good  sense 
"not  to  let  her  studies  interfere  with  her  col- 
lege education."  Not  to  amass  knowledge  but 


FEANCES  E.  WILLAED  223 

to  enhance  character  was  her  dearest  aim.  "I 
am  more  interested  in  the  Memoirs  of  Mar- 
garet Fuller  Ossoli,'  she  writes,  in  her  diary, 
1  'than  in  any  book  I  have  read  for  years. 
Here  we  see  what  a  woman  achieved  for  her- 
self, not  so  much  fame  or  honor,  these  are  of 
minor  importance,  but  a  whole  character,  a 
cultivated  intellect,  right  judgment,  self-knowl- 
edge, self-happiness.  If  she,  why  not  we,  by 
steady  toil?" 

In  this  quest  for  inward  grace  her  early  re- 
ligious drift  again  showed  itself.  While  ill 
with  typhoid  fever,  she  experienced  an  "  arrest 
of  thought"  as  she  called  it,  and  said,  "If  God 
lets  me  get  well,  I  will  try  to  be  a  Christian 
girl."  That  winter  she  knelt  in  prayer  four- 
teen nights  at  the  altar  in  the  Methodist  re- 
vival services,  and  finally  joined  the  church  in 
full  connection.  From  that  time  forward,  the 
woman's  religious  aspirations  colored  her 
every  thought. 

At  the  same  time,  Miss  Frances  displayed  a 
growing  talent  for  leadership.  When  the  girls 
made  sport  of  her  red  hood  she  trounced  one 
of  them  in  sight  of  all  the  others.  As  for  the 
men,  she  would  have  none  of  them.  She 
thought  women  should  govern  their  own 
actions  with  an  independence  like  that  of  men. 
As  her  popularity  grew,  she  invented  all  kinds 
of  pranks  and  led  the  girls  on  to  perpetrate 
them.  And  in  her  last  year,  envious  of  the 
young  men  for  the  fun  they  had  in  their  secret 
societies,  she  initiated  the  girls,  with  proper 


224    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

oaths,  into  a  mystic  order  of  her  own.  "It 
makes  me  laugh,7  she  later  confessed,  "to 
think  how  simply  and  naturally  in  all  our  play 
6 organizations7  the  chief  incentive,  reward  and 
honor  of  the  leading  officer's  position  was  a 
right  to  have  the  'say  so.'  " 

All  in  all,  Frances  Willard  in  her  student 
days  seems  to  have  done  exactly  what  earnest 
students  everywhere  do;  she  strove  for  per- 
sonal strength  and  independence.  Nor  was 
this  ideal  spent  when  she  finished  college. 
Although  she  passed  immediately  into  teach- 
ing, she  had  little  passion  for  enlightening  the 
young,  but  a  very  intense  one  for  building  up 
her  own  powers.  After  reviewing  the  draw- 
backs of  the  profession,  she  calmly  accepted 
them,  saying,  "I  think  I  may  grow  to  be  strong 
and  earnest  in  practice,  as  I  have  always  tried 
to  be  in  theory.  So  here  goes  for  a  fine  char- 
acter. If  I  were  not  intent  upon  it,  I  could 
live  contented  here  at  Swampscott  all  my 
days." 

Miss  Willard  taught  in  two  or  three  rough 
country  schools,  typical  of  the  times.  While 
the  pupils  sang  "I  want  to  be  an  angel'  at 
her  bidding,  she  had  often  to  impel  them  along 
the  way  by  means  of  a  hickory  stick.  So  by 
exercise  in  alternate  coaxing  and  driving,  she 
doubtless  got  some  of  the  strength  she  yearned 
for. 

Just  how  long  she  centered  her  hopes  upon 
herself  in  this  way  cannot  be  known.  But  in 
1862  Mary  died.  This  loss  appears  to  have 


FRANCES  E.  WILLARD  225 

greatly  deepened  her  social  and  religious  feel- 
ing. Perhaps  she  took  all  girls  to  be  her  sis- 
ters then,  and  lavished  upon  them  the  affection 
which  had  formerly  gone  out  toward  Mary 
alone.  At  any  rate,  as  teacher  for  the  next 
two  years  in  the  Pittsburg  Female  College,  she 
showed  most  unusual  powers.  Not  only  did 
she  shine  as  a  classroom  lecturer  and  a  tea 
table  wit.  She  wrote  a  biography  of  her  sis- 
ter, called  " Nineteen  Beautiful  Years;"  and 
she  tried  to  realize  in  those  about  her  the 
virtues  she  described.  "She  believed  in  young 
girls,"  a  friend  reports,  "trusted  them,  stood 
by  them  often  when  others  condemned,  and 
sought  out  those  who  were  shy  and  retiring 
and  had  little  confidence  in  themselves."  She 
coaxed  and  reproved  them,  caressed  and 
scolded  them,  corrected  their  compositions  and 
read  their  love  letters.  And  so  strong  a  devo- 
tion did  she  inspire  in  her  pupils  that  some 
said  she  used  magic  or  hypnotism. 

The  fact  is,  she  was  simply  beginning  to  ex- 
press in  a  more  general  way  the  tender  senti- 
ments that,  in  her  own  home,  had  become  a  part 
of  her  nature.  Then  shortly  by  the  marriage 
of  her  brother  and  the  death  of  her  father  that 
home  was  entirely  broken  up.  She  no  longer 
thought  of  herself.  Her  heart  was  empty.  She 
had  to  seek  a  career  to  fill  it.  Is  it  any  won- 
der she  chose  a  career  for  the  making  and  pro- 
tection of  beautiful  homes?  The  home  had 
ruled  her  life  from  the  beginning,  and  it  would 
do  so  always. 


226    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

In  the  spring  of  1868,  Miss  Willard  sailed  for 
a  two  and  a  half  years '  tour  of  Europe  with  her 
friend,  Miss  Jackson.  The  two  women  paid  a 
studious  visit  to  every  country  on  that  conti- 
nent, and  to  Egypt  and  Palestine.  They  "did" 
the  cathedrals  and  galleries  and  music  halls, 
and  with  the  proverbial  zest  of  Yankee  school- 
ma'ams  tasted  something  of  the  culture  of  all 
the  ages.  A  joyous,  care-free  journey!  And 
yet  one  reads  in  Frances'  journal,  "I  never 
dreamed  in  all  those  lethargic  years  at  home 
what  a  wide  world  it  is,  how  full  of  misery!" 

The  truth  is  that  from  all  the  galleries  and 
colleges  and  relics  of  the  dead  past  she  turned 
aside  more  and  more  to  see  how  people  of  her 
own  day  actually  lived.  And  what  did  she  see  ? 
In  Egypt  the  degradation  of  child  wives  who 
at  twenty  were  already  old ;  in  Italy,  the  neces- 
sity of  an  early  marriage  or  a  hard  choice  be- 
tween convent  life  and  a  disgraced  spinster- 
hood.  In  France — but  let  us  quote  her  conver- 
sation with  a  Parisian  lady. 

"I  am  much  concerned,"  said  the  Parisienne, 
"for  my  friend,  Madame  D.,  who  is  just  now 
doing  her  best  to  marry  off  her  daughter ;  and 
it  is  high  time,  too,  for  the  girl  is  already  eight- 


een/ 


"How  will   they   begin   their   operations?' 
Miss  Willard  inquired. 

"Oh,  the  parents  will  say  quite  frankly  to 
their  friends,  'Find  me  a  husband  for  my  daugh- 
ter. '  And  the  friends  will  beat  up  for  recruits, 
and  will,  perhaps,  find  a  young  man  who  is 


FEANCES  E.  WILLAED  227 

deemed  suitable,  and  who  is  willing  to  'consider 
the  project'  at  least.  Then,  the  parties  will 
meet  in  the  picture  gallery  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg or  at  an  open  air  concert  in  the  Champs 
Elysees.  The  young  people  are  now  introduced 
while  the  old  ones,  look  on  sharply  to  witness 
the  effect.  After  several  minutes  of  casual 
conversation  they  separate.  The  young  man 
says  to  his  friends,  'She  pleases  me'  or  'She 
pleases  me  not,'  and  upon  this  turns  the  de- 


cision. 


"But  what  about  the  girl!'  Miss  Willard 
pursued  innocently. 

"Oh,  the  girl?  She  is  charmingly  submis- 
sive. She  simpers  and  makes  a  courtesy,  and 
says,  'As  you  please,  dear  parents,  you  know 
what  is  for  my  good  far  better  than  I.' — So 
glad  is  she  to  marry  upon  any  terms ;  it  is  such 
a  release." 

Thus  everywhere,  even  in  Merrie  England, 
Frances  Willard  saw  that  women  were  chattels 
of  the  men,  inferior  creatures  with  inferior 
rights.  The  revelation  shocked  her.  There 
had  not  been  this  inequality  on  the  Wisconsin 
farm!  These  women,  with  all  their  native 
capabilities,  were  repressed  because  they 
' '  wore  skirts  and  sang  soprano. ' '  But  that  was 
not  the  worst.  Each  of  these  women  repre- 
sented a  home,  and  children  who  should  be 
fostered  in  the  home.  So,  with  degraded 
mothers  the  whole  race,  even  the  men — for 
men,  as  boys,  were  shaped  by  their  mothers — 
would  be  degraded.  The  home  was  the  mould 


228    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

of  character,  she  thought.  Woman,  as  wife  and 
mother,  determined  the  form  and  size  of  that 
mould.  Woman  determined  the  character,  the 
destiny  of  human  kind.  So  Frances  Willard 
asked,  "What  can  be  done  to  make  the  world  a 
wider  place  for  women? " 

And  in  Paris  she  resolved  "to  study  by  read- 
ing, personal  observation  and  acquaintance  the 
woman  question  in  Europe,  and,  after  return- 
ing to  America,  study  it  further  in  relation  to 
her  own  land.'  She  would  talk  in  public  on 
the  subject,  too.  She  would  fight.  For  this 
battle  would  "only  deepen  with  the  years,  and 
must  at  last  have  a  result  that  will  delight  all 
who  have  helped  to  hasten  it."  This  was 
Frances  Willard 's  choice  of  a  career. 

Miss  Willard  had  been  trained  for  teaching. 
Hence,  needing  a  steady  income,  as  she  did,  she 
naturally  continued  teaching  and  tried  to  wage 
the  all-important  battle  within  that  profession. 

Northwestern  University  was,  about  that 
time,  making  a  first  experiment  in  co-educa- 
tion. The  citizens  of  Evanston  banded  them- 
selves into  a  so-called  "College  for  Ladies," 
which  furnished  home  influences  for  the  young 
women  students  and  surrounded  them  with 
friends  of  their  own  sex.  Of  this  college  Miss 
Willard  was  elected  dean  in  1871. 

She  held  the  position  until  1874,  and  left  a 
remarkable  record.  She  introduced  an  honor 
system  among  the  girls,  by  which  each  became 
guardian  of  the  success  and  the  good  name  of 
the  school.  One  afternoon — so  runs  an  anec- 


FEANCES  E.  WILLAED  229 

dote  of  the  times — a  crowd  of  girls  were  out  for 
a  walk  together  when  a  trainload  of  men  stu- 
dents rolled  by.  The  men  gave  the  "Fern. 
Sena."  salute.  Not  a  girl  responded,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  regarded  the  salute  in  the  light  of 
an  insult.  "Miss  Willard,'  declares  one  who 
was  present,  "had  given  no  specific  directions 
how  the  girls  should  deport  themselves  toward 
young  men.  She  had  simply  inspired  them 
with  a  sense  of  their  individual  responsibility, 
had  made  them  feel  that  greater  interests  than 
they  had  dreamed  of  depended  upon  their  con- 
duct." 

She  made  them  feel,  in  fact,  that  the  whole 
interests  of  women  and  the  race  depended  on 
it.  For  the  furtherance  of  those  interests  was 
her  true  mission ;  and  how  could  she  begin  bet- 
ter than  by  converting  those  women  of  the/ 
future? 

Meanwhile  events  were  taking  place  that 
would  broaden  her  mission  beyond  the  small 
field  of  higher  education.  The  Woman's  Tem- 
perance Crusade  began  in  Ohio.  Women  of 
low  degree  and  high  swarmed  from  their  homes 
into  the  streets,  marched  to  the  saloons,  sang, 
prayed,  and  pleaded  with  the  rum-sellers  to  quit 
their  iniquitous  traffic.  In  fifty  days  the 
saloons  were  abolished  in  two  hundred  and 
fifty  towns.  The  revival  swept  on  and  could 
not  be  stayed.  It  struck  Chicago;  Miss  Wil- 
lard  began  to  read  about  it.  Here  was  a 
woman's  movement.  The  women  of  her  land 
were  grappling  with  the  problem  of  home  pro- 


230    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

tection — the  woman  problem  as  she  had  con- 
ceived it.  Miss  Willard  could  not  leave  her 
teaching.  But  "it  occurred  to  me,"  she  says, 
"that  I  ought  to  work  for  the  good  cause  just 
where  I  was — that  everybody  ought.  It  would 
be  dynamite  under  the  saloon  if,  just  where  he 
is  the  minister  would  begin  active  work  against 
it;  if  just  where  he  is,  the  teacher  would  in- 
struct his  pupils" — and  so  on. 

So,  just  where  she  was,  Miss  Willard  began 
by  making  her  rhetoric  pupils  write  on  prohi- 
bition themes.  But  she  could  not  stop  there; 
she  must  go  on.  One  day  in  March,  1874,  a 
procession  of  women  was  insulted  by  a  crowd 
of  street  corner  loafers.  The  incident  stirred 
Miss  Willard  to  the  soul.  She  made  a  public 
temperance  speech,  then  another,  and  before 
long  became  recognized  as  a  worthy  ally  in 
the  cause.  And  her  own  attitude?  "To  serve 
such  a  cause  would  be  utterly  enthralling — if 
only  I  had  more  time,  if  I  were  more  free ! ' 

She  would  soon  be  more  free.  She  disagreed 
with  the  president  of  Northwestern  about  the 
administration  of  her  college.  She  loved  the 
college,  loved  her  work  there,  loved  the  people 
of  education  and  polish  with  whom  she  asso- 
ciated. Yet  already  she  had  heard  a  call  that 
pierced  deeper  into  her  nature  than  the  cause 
of  mere  culture  ever  could — the  distressed 
pleadings  of  the  homes  of  her  land.  She  re- 
signed her  position  as  educator — soon  to  as- 
sume that  of  home  protector. 

Miss  Willard  now  went  east  to  study  the 


FRANCES  E.  WILLAKD  231 

anti-saloon  uprising.  With  no  independent  in- 
come, the  question  of  support  for  herself  and 
her  mother  troubled  her.  Ever  religious,  she 
consulted  the  Bible.  The  Book  opened  to  the 
words,  " Trust  in  the  Lord  and  do  good;  so 
shalt  thou  dwell  in  the  land,  and  verily  thou 
shalt  be  fed/  With  that  she  confidently  put 
financial  worries  behind  her  for  all  time. 

Alluring  offers  to  teach  pursued  her  from 
city  to  city.  She  took  counsel  with  her  friends. 
One  and  all,  not  excepting  her  mother,  they 
advised  a  return  to  her  profession.  For  the 
temperance  crusade,  though  rich  in  workers 
and  in  righteousness,  could  afford  but  the 
meagerest  salaries.  But  Frances  E.  Willard 
craved  a  position  that  would  pay  her  more  than 
money.  When  a  letter  invited  her  to  become 
president  of  the  Chicago  Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union  she  accepted  immediately 
and  started  west. 

Arrived  in  Chicago,  burning  with  ardor  for 
her  new — or,  rather,  her  fully  revealed — mis- 
sion, Miss  Willard  received  a  genuine  crusade 
baptism,  as  she  called  it.  She  locked  arms 
with  some  of  the  crusaders  and  paraded  down 
the  stony  street  to  the  saloon  district.  They 
halted  in  front  of  a  rum-shop.  The  keeper  for- 
bade them  entrance.  Nevertheless  they  sang 
and  prayed  before  they  passed  on ;  and  the  city 
throngs — newsboys,  laborers,  hurrying  business 
men,  even  the  brewers'  wagons — paused  to 
marvel  at  the  unwonted  spectacle.  At  the  next 
door  they  were  permitted  entrance;  Frances 


232    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

Willard  went  in  with  the  rest;  and  here,  for 
the  first  time,  she  saw  the  inside  of  a  saloon- 
its  sawdust  covered  floor,  its  all  too  convenient 
barrels,  its  bar  and  shelves  glittering  with  de- 
canters and  cut  glass.  The  fumes  of  the  place 
sickened  her,  but  she  did  not  retreat.  The 
leader  placed  her  Bible  on  the  bar  and  read  a 
psalm.  Then  they  sang  Rock  of  Ages  with  "a 
tender  confidence  to  the  height  of  which  one 
does  not  rise  in  the  easy-going  regulation  prayer 
meeting/  Then  the  leader  asked  Frances 
Willard  to  pray!  Around  her  were  a  few 
earnest  women;  behind  them,  filling  every 
corner  and  extending  out  into  the  street,  a 
'crowd  of  unwashed,  unkempt,  drinking  men. 
Yet  she  knelt  in  the  sawdust  and  prayed.  And 
"I  was  conscious  that  perhaps  never  in  my  life, 
save  beside  my  sister  Mary's  dying  bed,  had  I 
prayed  as  truly  as  I  did  then." 

Thus  she  probed  to  the  bottom  of  the  wrong 
she  wished  to  heal.  She  did  it,  not  like  a 
superior  person  who  reaches  down  a  jeweled 
hand  to  raise  degenerates;  but  like  a  sister 
who,  as  a  matter  of  course,  lends  her  support 
to  less  fortunate  brothers  in  the  great  human 
family.  At  first,  in  the  abandon  of  her  zeal, 
she  scorned  the  compensation  that  her  position 
allowed.  None  insisted,  thinking  she  had 
other  means.  Often  she  walked  across  the  city 
to  her  meetings  because  she  lacked  a  nickel  for 
car  fare ;  and  often  when  she  scoured  the  slums 
for  outcasts  she  might  help  she  could  say,  "I 
am  a  better  friend  than  you  dream,  I  know 


FRANCES  E.  WILLARD  233 

more  about  yon  than  you  think,  for,  bless  God, 
I  am  hungry,  too.' 

A  more  absolute  break  with  one's  accus- 
tomed manner  of  life  has  seldom  been  recorded. 
"Instead  of  peace,"  she  says,  "I  was  to  par- 
ticipate in  war;  instead  of  the  sweetness  of 
home,  I  was  to  become  a  wanderer  on  the  face 
of  the  earth;  instead  of  libraries,  I  was  to  fre- 
quent public  halls  and  railway  carriages;  in- 
stead of  scholarly  and  cultured  men,  I  was  to 
see  the  dregs  of  saloon  and  gambling  house.' 
But  in  the  slowly  growing  purpose  of  her  life 
there  was  no  break.  Only  it  was,  all  at  once, 
infinitely  enlarged.  The  cause  of  women  had 
at  last  enthralled  her.  "Hence,"  she  declared, 
"I  have  felt  that  great  promotion  came  to  me 
when  I  was  counted  worthy  to  be  a  worker  in 
the  organized  crusade  for  'God  and  Home  and 
Native  Land.'  " 

From  now  on  Miss  Willard's  biography  be- 
comes the  history  of  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  She  is 
seen  scarce  at  all  any  more  as  a  private  woman. 
Six  weeks  each  year  she  rested  at  home  with 
her  mother,  "Saint  Courageous,"  still  her  best- 
loved  adviser.  But  even  there  her  brain  was 
busy  with  articles,  interviews  and  plans  for  her 
Temperance  Union,  and  she  never  for  a  moment 
was  out  of  the  public  eye. 

In  October,  1874,  so  ably  had  she  supervised 
the  local  branch  at  Chicago,  she  was  elected 
corresponding  secretary  of  the  Illinois  State 
Union.  A  year  or  two  later  she  advanced  to 
the  same  office  in  the  National  Union.  And  in 


234    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGKESS 

1879 — for  her  executive  powers  matured 
rapidly  in  those  years — she  became  president 
of  the  National  Union. 

Her  doings  as  president  cannot  be  enumer- 
ated. She  wrote  books  and  founded  the  Tem- 
perance Publishing  Association.  But  princi- 
pally, and  with  her  finest  energies,  she  labored 
to  extend  and  solidify  the  national  organiza- 
tion. 

To  this  end  she  herself  took  the  field.  She 
purposed  to  speak  in  every  town  of  ten  thou- 
sand population  in  the  United  States.  She  did 
that,  and  included  most  towns  of  five  thousand 
besides.  She  virtually  lived  between  the  Pull- 
man car  and  the  lecture  hall,  traveling  in  one 
year  30,000  miles  and  averaging  for  twelve 
years  one  meeting  a  day.  Her  labors  were 
enormous;  her  recreations,  with  the  exception 
of  a  daily  half  hour  of  physical  exercise,  she 
forewent  entirely.  In  1877,  she  had  taken  as 
her  life  motto  this  verse  from  Paul,  "And 
whatsoever  you  do  in  word  or  deed,  do  all  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  giving  thanks  to 
God  and  the  Father  by  Him. ' '  And  surely  she 
toiled  as  though  in  the  eye  of  others  than  men. 
Once  in  the  White  Mountains,  having  an  ad- 
dress to  prepare,  she  sternly  turned  her  back 
to  that  attractive  scenery  that  she  might  con- 
centrate alone  on  her  work.  On  the  Hudson 
Eiver  trip,  while  others  gloated  on  the  splen- 
dors of  the  shore,  she  shut  herself  in  her  cabin 
below  decks  to  make  ready  for  a  coming  Chau- 
tauqua. 


FEANCES  E.  WILLAED  235 

What  did  she  mean  to  achieve  by  all  this 
speaking?  She  meant,  in  the  first  place,  to 
plant  in  every  town  a  branch  union  through 
which  the  women  could  unite  for  temperance. 
They  could  educate  their  children  in  the  home 
and  church  and  school.  They  could  agitate — 
make  processions,  hire  speakers,  force  tem- 
perance instruction  in  public  schools,  and  cam- 
paign for  pledges  among  the  men  even  at  the 
bars  where  they  drank.  They  could,  in  short, 
work  everywhere  in  a  woman's  way,  to  fortify 
their  homes  against  the  evil  of  intemperance. 
And  not  only  could  they,  but  they  would,  and 
gladly,  said  Frances  Willard.  Women  were 
natural,  inevitable  enemies  of  liquor,  because 
their  lives  were  consecrated  to  their  homes  and 
liquor  ruined  their  husbands,  their  children, 
and  all  that  made  their  homes  precious.  Hence 
mother  love,  said  Miss  Willard,  will  overwhelm 
the  saloon, — if  only  mother  love  be  effectu- 
ally organized. 

As  time  went  on,  Miss  Willard  saw  that  even 
in  America  the  drink  habit  was  only  the  worst 
of  many  home  destroying  vices.  'All  these 
things  mother  love  would  overcome,  Miss  WTil- 
lard  said,  if  it  were  properly  organized,  and, 
due  to  W.  C.  T.  U.  agitation,  women  undoubt- 
edly thought  more  and  did  more  about  them 
than  they  ever  had  done  in  the  past.  "Do 
everything, "  Miss  Willard  said  to  the  women 
of  the  country,  "when  you  see  a  head,  hit  it.' 
And  through  lectures,  reading  circles,  papers 
and  petitions,  she  sowed  all  over  the  land  an4" 


236    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

interest  in  all-round  home  improvement  that 
has  never  lost  its  force. 

Yet  in  time  Miss  Willard  detected  another 
weakness  in  her  plan.  The  women  might  think, 
they  might  educate  themselves  and  their  chil- 
dren, they  might  pray,  preach  and  petition,  or 
what  not; — but  men  still  made  the  laws  and 
they,  not  having  the  ' i  reasons '  of  women, 
might  always  make  laws  to  hedge  round  the 
liquor  traffic  and  related  evils.  An  organiza- 
tion of  women  outside  of  politics  would  be 
doomed,  in  the  long  run,  to  mere  futile  wishing. 
Hence  she  declared  in  favor  of  woman  suffrage. 

To  espouse  such  a  cause  was  no  small  mat- 
ter in  1876.  But  Miss  Willard  had  been  think- 
ing a  long  time — ever  since  that  day  at  Forest 
Home,  when  her  mother  hinted  of  it  to  her 
father.  She  had  reached  the  belief  that  here 
was  the  essential  division  between  men  and 
women  in  America,  the  peculiar  form  of 
woman's  restraint  that  undermined  the 
strength  and  beauty  of  homes.  "By  this  time, 
+  my  soul  had  come  to  '  woe  is  me  if  I  declare  not 
this  gospel.'  She  had  prayed  over  it  and 
^believed  that  she  had  divine  guidance.  So  at 
Newark,  New  Jersey,  while  her  good  friends 
wept  at  thought  of  the  ostracism  that  would 
follow,  she  voiced  her  memorable  argument, 
f  "Votes  For  Women." 

"When  I  had  finished,  a  lady  from  New 
York,  gray-haired  and  dignified,  who  was  pre- 
siding, said  to  the  audience:  'The  National 
Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  is  not 


FRANCES  E.  WILLARD  237 

responsible  for  the  utterances  of  this  evening. 
We  have  no  mind  to  trail  our  skirts  in  the  mire 
of  politics!'  She  doubtless  thought  it  her  duty 
to  speak,  and  I  have  no  thought  of  blame,  only 
regret.  As  we  left  the  church,  one  of  our  chief 
women  said,  'You  might  have  been  a  leader  in 
our  national  councils,  but  you  have  deliberately 
chosen  to  be  only  a  scout/  " 

So  unpopular  was  woman  suffrage  then! 
Yet  Miss  Willard  stood  sturdily  by  her  con- 
victions and  before  many  years  the  National 
Union  outspokenly  adopted  a  suffrage  plank; 
and  it  has  been  among  the  foremost  of  all  the 
agencies  that  have  pushed  that  reform. 

With  these  watchwords,  "Prohibition, 
Woman 's  Liberation  and  Labor's  Uplift,'  the 
National  Union,  under  Miss  Willard 's  leader- 
ship, soon  counted  one  million  members.  Such 
a  thing  had  never  been  heard  of  in  history. 
Women  had  been  supposed  incapable  of  organ- 
ization ;  they  could  only  follow  the  lead  of  men, 
for  men's  purposes.  But  Frances  Willard  dis- 
covered a  woman's  purpose;  she  utilized 
woman's  instinct;  and  she  convinced  a  reluc- 
tant world  that  through  those  instincts  and  pur- 
poses woman  would  thenceforth  have  an  appre- 
ciable influence  in  human  affairs. 

One  of  the  slogans  of  the  National  Union 
under  Miss  Willard  had  been,  "For  God  and 
Home  and  Native  Land.'  Yet  she  at  no  time 
aimed  to  promote  the  good  of  her  own  country 
at  the  expense  of  another.  Narrow  minded 
nationalism  she  abhorred.  Her  cause  was  the 


238    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 


cause  of  women  and  humanity,  and  only  inci- 
dentally of  America.  The  "native  land" 
phrase  she  added  only  because  she  had  not 
imagined  her  ideas  could  carry  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  the  nation.  But  time  came 
when  she  knew  better;  and  the  words 
could  be  dropped,  or  changed  to  "  every 
land." 

In  San  Francisco  she  saw  the  fatal  results 
of  the  opium  trade,  and  saw  Chinese  women 
abased  far  beyond  the  lowest  level  of  her  own 
people.  Her  first  thoughts  on  the  subject  of 
woman  and  home-improvement  had  been  actu- 
ated by  her  observations  abroad,  and  this  re- 
vived a  host  of  unpleasant  memories.  She 
brooded  on  the  repulsive  sights  of  Chinatown 
month  after  month;  she  could  not  cast  them 
out  if  she  would ;  and  finally,  one  night,  she  was 
favored  with  what  she  believed  to  be  a  distinct 
revelation  from  God. 

"But  for  the  intrusion  of  the  sea,"  she  said, 
"the  shores  of  China  and  the  far  East  would 
be  part  and  parcel  of  our  land.  We  are  one 
world  of  tempted  humanity.  The  mission  of 
the  White  Ribbon  women  is  to  organize  the 
motherhood  of  the  world  for  the  peace  and 
purity,  and  protection  and  exaltation  of  its 
homes.  We  must  send  forth  a  clear  call  to  our 
sisters  yonder,  and  our  brothers,  too.' 

In  her  annual  address  in  Detroit  in  1883  Miss 
Willard  frankly  proclaimed  the  new  doctrine; 
and  then  and  there  came  into  being  the  nu- 
cleus  of  the  World's  Woman's  Christian  Tern- 


FKANCES  E.  WILLARD  239 

perance  Union.  Miss  Willard  was  elected 
president.  White  Kibbon  missionaries,  sailing 
from  New  York,  traversed  every  continent  of 
the  globe,  founding  local  societies,  and  federat- 
ing them,  where  possible,  into  national  unions. 
In  1891,  the  first  biennial  world's  convention 
assembled  in  Boston.  And  by  1898,  when  Miss 
Willard  died,  the  world's  union  had  been  es- 
tablished in  fifty  nations. 

The  activities  of  this  world  union, — which 
multiplied  the  wonder  of  Miss  Willard 's  previ- 
ous performance — cannot,  of  course,  be  traced 
out  in  detail.  Suffice  it  that  the  banded  women 
of  half  a  hundred  lands  imitated  the  American 
plan,  and  often  with  more  than  American  suc- 
cess. Yet  one  or  two  measures  bear  Miss  Wil- 
lard 's  individual  stamp  so  clearly  that  they 
cannot  be  omitted. 

The  first  is  the  Polyglot  Petition.  Miss-f 
Willard  addressed  this  to  the  ^"Governments  of 
the  World."  It  implored  each  government  to 
prohibit  the  liquor  and  opium  trade,  and  to 
raise  the  standard  of  the  law  to  that  of 
Christian  morals.  Missionaries  carried  copies 
to  every  continent.  Local  unions  there  signed 
it  and  presented  it  to  their  sovereigns.  The 
names  in  over  fifty  different  languages  were 
then  mailed  to  the  American  headquarters,  and 
trimmed,  and  mounted  on  a  strip  of  red-white- 
and-blue  muslin.  The  enormous  rolls  of  cloth, 
with  two  million  signatures,  were  finally 
brought  to  the  attention  of  President  Cleve- 
land, and  a  fac-simile  in  book  form,  to  that  of 


240    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

Queen  Victoria.  They  were  afterward  shipped 
from  place  to  place  for  a  decoration  and  a 
symbol  in  various  convention  halls. 

Not  one  country  acceded  to  the  terms  of  the 
petition,  nor  had  Miss  Willard  expected  it- 
would.  But,  she  argued,  every  woman  who 
signed  was  awakened  to  the  urgency  of  the  tem- 
perance question ;  and,  inspired  by  the  thought 
of  being  in  a  class  with  several  million  others, 
they  would  continue  to  study  it  and  to  pass  on 
their  knowledge  till  not  one  ignorant  person 
remained.  Then  prohibitive  legislation  would 
come  as  a  matter  of  course.  As  a  world-wide 
promoter  of  education  the  Polyglot  Petition 
has  had  no  like;  and  the  ponderous  rolls  still 
kept  in  the  Union  headquarters  are  a  fit  monu- 
ment to  Miss  Willard 's  genius. 
^  The  second  noteworthy  deed  of  the  World's 
Union  was  its  interference  in  Armenia.  That 
Christian  country  had  been  oppressed  and  per- 
secuted for  three  hundred  years  by  the  Turks. 
At  last  war  broke  out — yet  not  war — for  the 
Armenians  had  no  arms ;  and  they  were  cruelly 
murdered,  fifty  thousand  in  one  year,  and  their 
fields  overrun  and  villages  sacked. 

Few  details  of  this  horror  had  leaked  out 
until  a  shipload  of  maimed  creatures  escaped 
to  Marseilles,  France.  Miss  Willard,  then  in 
Europe,  went  at  once  to  Marseilles,  where  she 
learned  in  full  of  the  century-long  tragedy. 
She  found  homes  for  the  refugees  and  then 
sailed  for  America  with  a  crusader's  message 
in  her  heart. 


FEANCES  E.  WILLAED  241 

" Sisters,  countrymen!'  she  cried,  "our  fel- 
low worshipers  perish  because  they  will  not 
apostatize.  An  ancient  nation  is  being  slaugh- 
tered on  the  plains  of  old  Bible  story!"  The 
Turks,  with  their  un-Christian  marriage  cus- 
toms, were  outraging  a  people  whose  only  fault 
was  "their  devotion  to  Christ  and  their  loyalty 
to  a  pure  home." 

Miss  Willard  petitioned  the  government,  de- 
claring that  "the  protection  of  the  home  is  the 
supreme  duty  of  statesmen,'  and  urging  that 
our  country  unite  with  England  to  stop  the 
massacre.  She  called  upon  the  unions  in  every 
locality  to  meet,  and  protest,  and  collect  money 
for  the  relief  of  those  far-away,  desecrated 
Christian  homes.  And  "may  God  so  deal  with 
us  at  last,'  she  cried,  "as  we  deal  with  our 
Armenian  sisters  and  brothers,  and  their  little 
ones,  in  this  hour  of  their  overwhelming  cal- 
amity. ' ' 

"These  appeals,'  says  one  historian,  "have 
hardly  been  equaled  in  effect  in  the  annals  of 
the  world. ' '  The  nation  was  aroused.  Money 
flowed  in  from  ten  thousand  sources.  Business 
men  gave,  and  churches,  and  women  and  chil- 
dren. Clara  Barton,  the  Eed  Cross  nurse, 
sailed  for  Constantinople,  the  private  emissary 
of  a  whole  people.  With  the  consent  of  the 
Turkish  government — already  shamed  for  its 
cruelty — her  agents  walked  into  the  desolated 
land  with  medicine  and  food  and  seed  corn; 

A 

and  with  tools  to  build  new  houses  and  encour- 
agement   to    found   new   homes — because   the 


242    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PEOGEESS 

homes  of  America  would  see  to  their  protec- 
tion. 

The  significance  of  this  act  cannot  be  meas- 
ured in  terms  of  money  spent  or  of  people 
saved.  It  meant  that  the  women  of  the  land 
— not  public  women,  but  home-staying  women, 
the  mothers  of  children — could  take  a  hand  in 
world  politics  and  actually  force  history.  The 
home-protection  principle  had  been  asserted 
and  operated  on  an  international  scale. 
Frances  Willard  had  climaxed  her  life  with  an 
achievement  she  could  not  hope  to  surpass. 

Miss  Willard  divided  her  last  six  years  about 
equally  between  America  and  Europe.  In 
England,  she  stayed  with  the  English  presi- 
dent, Lady  Henry  Somerset,  who  gave  her  every 
comfort.  But  more  and  more  the  great  leader 
felt  drawn  to  her  native  land.  In  1892  her 
mother  died.  Through  all  her  public  life  sh 
had  depended  upon  that  mother  and  her  wel 
come  at  "Eest  Cottage,"  at  Evanston,  Illinois, 
almost  as  implicitly  as  she  had  when  a  child. 
"My  nature  is  so  interwoven  with  hers,'  she 
wrote,  "that  I  almost  think  it  would  be  death 
for  me  to  have  the  bond  severed  and  one  so 
much  myself  gone  over  the  river.'  And  when 
the  home-idyl  -had  ended  at  last  forever,  her 
health  continually  failed,  and  it  soon  became 
evident  that  she  could  not  long  maintain  her 
hold  on  this  world.  Trying,  perhaps,  to  supply 
what  she  had  lost,  she  returned,  with  a  curious, 
unappeased  longing,  to  the  haunts  of  her  child- 
hood. 


FRANCES  E.  WILLAED  243 

She  sought  out  the  records  of  her  earliest 
ancestors  in  Kent,  England.  She  found  the 
grave  of  her  first  American  ancestor  in  Massa- 
chusetts, "Elijah  Willard,  a  beautiful  man," 
and  placed  on  it  a  bunch  of  water-lilies,  the 
floral  emblem  of  the  World  >s  W.  C.  T.  IL  She 
saw  where  her  mother  and  father  had  been 
born,  eleven  miles  apart.  She  saw  the  house 
and  the  room  of  her  own  birth,  and  those  of  her 
sister  Mary.  She  revisited  Evanston  and 
Janesville,  and  finally  Forest  Home  which  had 
affected  her  so  powerfully  as  a  girl.  Every- 
where she  reflected  upon  her  youth  and  the  in- 
fluences that  had  made  it,  and  gathered  up  all 
the  old  personal  ties  that  had  latterly  been 
broken.  With  all  earnestness  she  tried  to  re- 
cover the  scenes  and  thoughts,  the  very  actu- 
ality of  her  childhood  home. 

At  the  same  time  she  relinquished  none  of 
her  work  with  the  national  and  world's  unions. 
So  long  as  strength  remained  she  lectured, 
wrote  letters,  editorials  and  articles,  and  pre- 
sided at  the  councils  of  her  women. 

Thus  while  leading  the  forefront  of  a  world 
movement,  she  became,  for  a  time,  the  simple 
child  of  a  western  farm;  and,  though  happy  to 
be  a  pioneer  home  child,  she  still,  as  a  woman, 
bravely  pioneered  for  the  advancement  of  aP 
homes  and  all  humanity.  The  two  ends  of  he 
life  curiously  met.  And  they  differed  scarcely 
at  all  except  in  their  scope. 

"If  I  were  asked  the  mission  of  the  idea* 


244    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGEESS 

woman/'  Miss  Willard  once  declared,  "I  would 
say,  it  is  to  make  the  whole  world  homelike. 
The  true  woman  will  make  homelike  every 
place  she  enters, — and  she  will  enter  every 
place  in  this  wide  world. " 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER 

J  ELLEN  FOSTER  was  all  her  life  a  consci- 
•  entious  church  goer.  Like  the  Puritans 
in  whose  stock  she  was  rooted,  she  went  not  to 
see  or  be  seen,  but  to  listen;  and  when  she 
heard  words  of  spiritual  truth,  she  jotted  them 
down  in  her  diary  to  ruminate  on  at  leisure. 
The  entry  of  July  31,  1904,  reads  in  part : 

"The  sermon  was  strong  and  helpful.  I 
make  this  application  to  my  present  situation. 
I  am  now  looking  for  a  stenographer.  She 
must,  of  course,  know  how  to  'take  down'  rap- 
idly and  correctly ;  she  must  be  a  lady,  first ;  but 
above  all,  as  absolutely  essential,  she  must  be 
true  to  me.  So  with  God  in  his  choice  of  work- 
ers :  his  first  honors  are  to  those  who  are  true. 
God  helping  me,  I  will  be  true." 

On  August  21  of  the  same  year  the  note  is 
made,  "Went  to  church  but  was  sleepy.  Still 
I  bring  away  the  lesson,  'The  Thought  of  God' 
— this  should  be  the  background  of  every  life. 
I  humbly  rejoice  because  I  know  it  is  the  back- 
ground of  mine." 

Mrs.  Foster  was  at  the  time  sixty-four  years 
old.  The  words  referred  to  that  present  date; 
but  they  were  also  a  summing  up  of  all  her 
years,  and  a  fulfillment  of  the  promise  of  her 
youth. 

She  was  born  Judith  Ellen  Horton,  in  Low- 

245 


246    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

ell,  Massachusetts,  1840.  Externally,  a  clear 
religious  background  for  her  life  had  already 
been  sketched  by  her  parents.  Mrs.  Horton  in- 
herited Puritan  traditions  and  showed  them 
forth  in  gentleness  and  affection  as  a  wife  and 
mother.  The  father  had  a  kindred  spirit — but 
it  emerged  from  him  in  acts  more  positive  and 
energetic.  For  thirty  years  a  Methodist  min- 
ister, he  was  not  more  ready  to  recommend 
right  living  and  the  bliss  thereof  than  to  de- 
nounce a  course  of  evil  and  to  portray  the 
horror  of  its  consequences.  "A  faithful  min- 
ister of  the  gospel' *  were  the  words  that  he 
wished  carved  on  his  tomb.  And  his  was  a 
fighting  faithfulness.  The  Methodist  church 
took  an  equivocal  position  concerning  slavery. 
In  general  conference,  when  called  upon  to  lead 
the  devotions,  he  made  bold  to  pray  "that  the 
wrath  of  God  might  not  descend  upon  a  slave 
holding  church."  The  bishop  reproved  him 
for  the  undutiful  allusion.  Later,  because  of 
the  church's  attitude  on  slavery,  he  withdrew 
from  the  sect  and  affiliated  with  the  Wesleyan : 
for  the  gospel  to  which  he  would  be  faithful 
had  to  be  one  in  which  he  could  be  true. 

The  combined  gentleness  and  intensity  of  the 
minister's  home  were  unfortunately  too  soon 
lost  to  the  growing  girl.  The  mother  died 
when  she  was  eight,  and  the  father  when  she 
was  thirteen,  and  she  went  to  live  with  her 
elder  sister,  Mrs.  Pierce,  in  Boston.  The 
transfer  was  not,  however,  to  a  less  pious  at- 
mosphere, for  Mrs.  Pierce  had  become  in- 


.  J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  247 

grained  with  the  scruples  of  their  father. 
Then  the  stern  Puritanism  received  from 
father  and  sister  was  soon  fire-tempered  by  an 
act  of  Miss  Horton's  brother  Jotham.  Serv- 
ing as  chaplain  of  a  peace  conference  in  New 
Orleans,  he  made  a  prayer  too  honest  for  his 
hearers,  and  was  murdered  while  still  on  his 
knees. 

So  Miss  Horton,  in  her  plastic  years,  was 
made  firm  in  the  faith  of  her  fathers.  She 
never  experienced  conversion,  because  she 
never  was  conscious  of  variance  from  God's 
purposes.  While  her  education  went  on  in 
Boston — a  very  complete  education  in  books, 
music  and  society,  thanks  to  her  sister's 
wealth, — she  disciplined  herself  yet  more  thor- 
oughly in  the  lore  and  labors  of  the  church. 
Not  only  did  she  eschew  dancing,  card  playing 
and  like  frivolities :  once,  when  at  a  Wesleyan 
seminary  at  Lima,  New  York,  she  wrote  to  her 
monitor,  "I  promise  not  to  go  walking  on  Sun- 
day or  to  gossip  on  Thursday."  She  early  be- 
gan a  practice  that  she  would  never  afterward 
discontinue,  of  spending  a  half-hour  in  devo- 
tions each  morning  before  she  faced  the  duties 
of  the  day.  She  belonged  to  the  missionary 
society  of  the  church,  taught  a  Sunday-school 
class,  and,  still  led  on  by  her  father 's  evangeliz- 
ing spirit,  went  into  the  dingy  missions  to  sing 
new  hope  into  the  lives  of  weary-hearted 
dwellers  in  the  slums. 

During  this  time,  the  fifties  and  sixties  of  the 
nineteenth    century,    certain    vigorous-minded 


248    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

women  were  proclaiming  a  new,  secular  gospel. 
They  held  that  women  were  the  mental  and 
moral  equals  of  men.  They  asked  for  equal 
rights  at  the  polls,  in  the  courts,  and  in  eco- 
nomic fields ;  and  scores  of  them  like  Mrs. 
Stanton,  Florence  Nightingale,  and  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  were  forging  into  positions  of  public 
usefulness  where  men  had  formerly  reigned 
alone.  Miss  Horton,  however,  did  not  accept 
the  gospel  of  emancipated  womanhood.  She 
believed  woman's  place  was  the  home,  and  her 
duties  wifely  affection  and  maternal  care.  Out- 
side the  home,  if  she  had  strength,  she  might 
abet  the  propaganda  of  the  church.  That  was 
public,  indeed,  but  it  was  religious.  In  such 
things  a  woman  could,  in  her  way,  be  a  "faith- 
ful minister  of  the  gospel." 

But  Miss  Horton  was  the  heir  of  family 
heroisms  she  could  not  put  out  of  mind:  her 
ancestors  had  fought  in  the  Revolution,  her 
father  had  resigned  his  church  for  conscience's 
sake,  her  brother  had  been  slain  for  speaking 
truth.  Her  background  was  purely  religious; 
but  the  religion  was  one  of  action.  The  future, 
while  leaving  unchanged  her  notion  of  what 
woman  is,  might  be  expected  radically  to 
broaden  her  conception  of  what  woman  may  do. 

While  still  a  young  woman  she  went  to 
Chicago  to  live  with  relatives.  There,  in  the 
slums  of  the  Bridgeport  district,  she  directed 
the  music  in  a  mission  Sunday-school.  One  of 
the  teachers  was  a  lawyer,  recently  graduated 
from  the  University  of  Michigan,  named  E.  C. 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  249 

Foster.  The  young  man  and  woman,  drawn 
together  by  similarity  of  interests,  soon  formed 
a  love  match,  married,  and  settled  in  Clinton, 
Iowa.  The  husband  would  practice  law  for 
their  support,  so  they  planned,  and  Mrs.  Foster 
would  busy  herself  agreeably  with  her  familiar 
occupations  in  the  home  and  the  church. 

Children  were  born,  and  Mrs.  Foster  has  tes- 
tified eloquently  to  her  delight  in  them,  "I 
know  the  intense  interest  of  guiding  the  child 
mind  and  the  sensitive  child  heart.  I  know  the 
bliss  of  mother  love.  It  outranks  all  other  joy 
that  I  have  known."  To  the  doings  of  the 
church  she  also  lent  a  hand,  for  that  was  as  nat- 
ural as  living. 

The  religious-minded  couple  had  not  been 
long  in  Clinton,  however,  before  they  saw  that 
church  work  could  not  be  limited  by  the  con- 
ventional bounds  set  by  well-to-do  people  in 
Boston.  Clinton  was  a  lumber  town.  With  its 
gambling  dens,  saloons,  and  "Murderer's 
Row,'  to  which  the  rivermen  swarmed,  it  was 
reputed  one  of  the  wickedest  towns  on  the  Mis- 
sissippi. Furthermore,  it  was  a  comparatively 
small  town;  the  good  parts  and  the  bad  were 
necessarily  commingled,  and  in  simple  self-de- 
fense the  interests  of  righteousness  had  ac- 
tively to  put  down  those  of  evil. 

In  the  early  seventies  this  antagonism  re- 
solved into  a  fierce  conflict.  Some  women  in 
an  Ohio  town  had  taken  it  into  their  heads  to 
beat  down  the  saloon  power.  Their  spirit  in- 
fected women  everywhere,  and  almost  in  a  day 


250    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

a  woman's  temperance  crusade  was  sweeping 
from  coast  to  coast.  The  church  women  of 
Clinton  welcomed  any  method  by  which  they 
could  purify  their  town.  A  band  of  them  took 
their  hymn  books  and  marched  into  "Mur- 
derer's Row."  They  sang  and  prayed  in  every 
saloon  which  they  were  allowed  to  enter.  To 
their  gratification,  some  hard  faced  men  left 
off  carousing  to  sing  and  worship  with  them. 
Some  were  shamed  and  went  home  vowing  they 
would  drink  no  more.  Some  proprietors  were 
moved  to  drive  out  their  patrons  and  close  the 
doors, — for  the  night,  if  not  for  all  time. 

Encouraged  by  these  signs,  Mrs.  Foster  or- 
ganized the  women  into  a  permanent  society. 
Then,  drawing  on  her  knowledge  of  city  mis- 
sions, she  opened  a  hall  where  she  could  sing, 
and  exhort,  and  educate  for  temperance.  At 
first  her  proceedings  were  very  simple.  She 
hitched  old  gray  "Charlie'  to  the  spring 
wagon,  put  a  bundle  of  sticks  in  behind,  and 
with  her  small  son  drove  to  the  hall ;  and  while 
he  kindled  a  fire  in  the  stove,  she  swept,  dusted 
and  ventilated.  Then  when  the  audience  had 
drifted  in,  the  janitoress  would  turn  orator, 
and  later  present  the  pledge,  "I  do  solemnly 
promise,  God  helping  me,  that  I  will  never 
make,  buy,  sell  or  use  intoxicating  liquors  as 
a  beverage,  and  that  I  will  in  all  honorable 
ways  discourage  their  use." 

So  far,  Mrs.  Foster  was  well  within  the 
established  proprieties.  But  now  a  change — 
in  fact  a  whole  series  of  rapid  changes— 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  251 

were  imminent.  Mr.  Foster,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, was  a  lawyer  as  well  as  a  church 
man.  While  his  wife  was  praying  in  the  rum 
shops,  damage  cases  against  the  saloon  fell  to 
him  to  advocate.  He  prosecuted  the  offenders 
fearlessly;  his  popularity  took  a  sudden  bound, 
and  intemperance  cases  filled  his  docket.  Now, 
in  order  to  understand  the  matters  that  oc- 
cupied him,  and  the  legal  side  of  matters  that 
on  their  moral  side  occupied  her,  Mrs.  Foster, 
urged  by  her  husband,  began  reading  law  in 
his  books  at  home.  For  some  years  she 
"studied  the  pages  of  Blackstone,  while  she 
dressed  dolls  and  blew  soap  bubbles"  for  her 
children. 

Meantime,  Mr.  Foster's  duel  drew  to  closer 
and  deadlier  issues.  Threatened  with  violence 
if  he  did  not  desist  from  mauling  the  saloons, 
he  only  quickened  his  blows.  Some  one,  in 
spite,  set  up  a  little  rum-shop  near  his  home. 
He  began  action  against  it  and  the  saloon  was 
driven  out.  But,  on  the  night  after  the  judg- 
ment was  pronounced,  thugs  burned  his  house. 
There  was  a  total  loss  of  all  his  goods,  and  the 
family  saved  themselves  but  narrowly. 

This  incident  probably  made  J.  Ellen  Foster. 
It  was  an  outrage  upon  her  home.  It  was  an 
unfair ,  retaliation  against  the  sincere,  even 
dutiful,  acts  of  her  religion.  The  mother  in  her 
and  the  evangelist  in  her,  as  by  a  chemical 
change,  became  stern  and  militant. 

She  had  applied  herself  closely  to  her  law 
reading.  Now  she  asked  her  husband  when  the 


252    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

bar  examinations  were  to  be  held.  Why?  She 
wanted  to  take  them!  There  was  not  a  single 
woman  lawyer  in  Iowa,  and  only  one  or  two 
in  America,  Still,  this  erstwhile  quiet  home- 
and-church  woman  wished  to  be  one.  In  due 
time  she  was  sworn  in  at  the  Iowa  bar.  One 
morning,  instead  of  staying  at  home,  she  got 
into  the  buggy  with  her  husband  behind  the  old 
gray  horse,  and  drove  to  his-  office.  A  new 
shingle  went  up:  "Foster  and  Foster,"  it  read. 
She  entered  the  room  and  squared  around  at  an 
empty  desk.  A  woman  came  in  and  began  to 
talk  to  Mr.  Foster.  A  saloon  had  ruined  her 
husband.  For  years,  it  had  steadily  debauched 
him,  taking  his  money  and  breaking  his  habits 
and  his  health.  To-day  they  were  penniless. 
The  house  was  to  be  sold.  They  would  have  no 
home  but  the  street.  And  there  were  children, 
four  of  them.  The  woman  wept.  She  could 
not  pay  a  lawyer  now,  but — 

' '  Here, ' '  said  Mr.  Foster,  turning  to  his  new 
partner,  "is  a  case  for  you.  You  can  make 
that  saloon  pay  damages.' 

So  another  anti-saloon  lawyer,  a  woman, 
soon  to  be  as  busy  and  successful  as  Mr.  Fos- 
ter, was  given  speed  in  her  profession. 

Simultaneously  Mrs.  Foster  took  a  deep 
plunge  into  the  popular  crusade  she  had  helped 
start.  Local  temperance  societies  had  been 
marshaling  in  various  towns  of  the  state,  and 
had  organized  into  an  Iowa  union.  In  1874  the 
National  Woman's  Christian  Temperance 
Union  had  arisen,  to  federate  those  of  the 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER          ,      253 

states.  Iowa  joined  the  sisterhood ;  and  almost 
at  once,  Mrs.  Foster  encountered  and  succumbed 
to  the  charm  of  the  national  president,  Frances 
E.  Willard.  "I  loved  her  with  a  chivalrous  de- 
votion not  common  among  women,7  she  says. 
"My  admiration  was  absolute  and  unquestion- 
ing. ...  I  gave  to  Miss  Willard  the  ardor 
of  a  personal  devotion,  which  drew  to  itself  the 
religious  fervor  of  that  holy  war.  Her  words 
were  to  me  almost  as  sacred  as  the  spirit  of  the 
movement  itself.  I  did  not  question  her 
methods  or  exercise  my  judgment  concerning 
them — I  was  only  too  happy  to  follow  where 
she  led." 

Miss  Willard  advised  her  to  go  on  the  plat- 
form and  tell  how  her  home  had  been  burned 
and  how  liquor  was  destroying  other  homes. 
The  idea  was  not  new  to  Mrs.  Foster,  but  the 
magnetism  of  the  great  leader,  who  was  her- 
self an  orator  with  the  purest  religious  en- 
thusiasm, gave  it  for  the  first  time  a  face  of 
plausibility.  So  she  went  to  stir  the  towns 
where  no  branches  existed.  Soon  she  found 
that  her  modest  practice  in  Sunday-schools, 
missions,  and  at  the  bar  had  matured  her  into 
a  powerful  orator.  The  economic  argument 
was  the  one  she  used  most, — the  loss  of  efficiency 
in  the  man,  society,  and  the  state.  ' '  She  sways 
her  audiences  at  will,"  wrote  an  editor,  "not 
by  sentimental  appeal,  but  by  that  quality  most 
rare  in  her  sex;  clear,  concise,  and  yet  beauti- 
fully embellished  logic." 

Yet  if  she  made  harvest  of  pledges  as  few 


254    HEEOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

women  could,  there  was  more  to  it  than  orator- 
ical skill — there  was  downright  hard  labor  by 
day  and  night,  and  there  was  constant  readiness 
with  the  personal  appeal.  She  would  speak 
one  afternoon  to  a  company  of  children  at  a 
school  picnic;  seven  o'clock  found  her  at  a 
banquet,  responding  to  a  toast ;  at  eight  o  'clock 
" tired  out,  and  with  not  one  idea  to  begin  on,'7 
she  faced  a  refined  audience  in  a  new  opera 
house — and  held  them  for  two  hours ;  at  eleven 
o'clock  she  got  wearily  onto  the  caboose  of  a 
freight  train,  and  was  dropped  two  hours  later 
on  a  switch,  whence  she  had  to  walk  a  mile  with 
her  baggage  to  a  hotel ;  at  ten  the  next  morning 
there  was  a  conference  with  the  local  leaders; 
at  noon  she  talked  to  a  crowd  of  grimy  miners, 
who  had  come  out  of  the  shaft  for  lunch.  And 
always,  with  her  rudest  audience  or  her  most 
elegant,  she  had  a  private  word  for  any  she 
could  reach. 

Very  soon,  from  a  humble  messenger  of  the 
(Union  she  was  elevated  to  be  i  ( Superintendent 
of  Legislation.'  Then  the  Union  petitioned 
for  a  constitutional  amendment  prohibiting  the 
sale  of  liquor  in  Iowa.  The  amendment  was 
referred  to  popular  vote.  Mrs.  Foster  ap- 
pealed to  the  people  of  the  state — young  and 
old,  women  and  men,  Democrats  and  Repub- 
licans,  churchmen  and  non-churchmen — every- 
body, without  distinction,  who  hated  the  blight 
of  intemperance.  The  people  forgot  their  age, 
party  and  denomination  and  voted  the  amend- 
ment through,  with  a  thirty  thousand  majority. 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTEE  255 

No  other  state  had  dealt  the  saloon  such  a  blow. 
Miss  Willard  declared  Iowa  to  be  "  Queen  and 
leader  of  Christian  civilization  on  this  con- 
tinent. ' ' 

This  was  in  1882,  only  nine  years  after  the 
burning  of  Mrs.  Foster's  home;  but  the  spell 
then  loosed  had  already  done  its  complete  work. 
No  longer  was  she  a  mere  fledgling  in  public 
life.  She  was  a  figure  bulking  large  in  the 
affairs  of  both  state  and  nation.  She  had 
swerved  widely  from  her  early  beliefs  concern- 
ing woman's  restriction  to  the  home  and  the 
church.  "As  a  rule,"  she  said,  "the  preachers 
and  teachers  who  speak  about  woman's  work  in 
the  churches  speak  too  much  of  the  petty  and 
insignificant.  They  emphasize  its  femininity 
rather  than  its  humanity.  Women  may  differ 
from  men  in  their  intellectuality,  but  there  is 
no  sex  in  soul,  and  women  have  a  work  to  do 
that  cannot  be  assumed  by  men.  It  is  a  large 
and  a  grand  work." 

Yet  her  sallies  into  public  life  were  still  ac- 
tuated by  the  same  religious  purpose  as  was 
her  church  and  mission  work.  She  never 
traveled  on  the  Sabbath ;  unless  too  ill  to  stand, 
she  never  missed  hearing  or  preaching  one  or 
more  sermons  on  that  day;  each  new  day  and 
each  new  enterprise  she  opened  with  prayer. 

She  was  still  religious  in  the  background; 
but,  the  fact  is  that  the  background  had  amaz- 
ingly spread.  Woman's  home  work  included, 
for  her,  opposition  to  the  enemies  of  the  home, 
anywhere,  and  by  any  means.  Woman's  reli- 


256    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

gious  work  might  include  any  effort  tending  to 
the  good  of  humanity.  Praying  in  "  Mur- 
derer's Row,'  pleading  at  the  bar,  or  arguing 
on  the  platform,  she  believed  her  deeds  con- 
sonant with  God's  purposes,  and  assigned  her 
to  do  from  heaven. 

The  Iowa  amendment  was  repealed  on 
technical  grounds,  but  Mrs.  Foster,  undaunted, 
went  deeper  into  the  work.  And,  with  closer 
intimacy,  she  fell  more  and  more  under  the 
spell  of  Miss  Willard.  Like  the  other  million 
or  so  of  women  in  the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  she  paid  an 
unreasoning  allegiance  to  the  loved  leader, 
whose  wish  was  law — and  whose  commands,  the 
cautious  feared,  might  be  a  tyranny.  "As  the 
work  progressed  and  my  official  relation  to  it 
necessitated  my  individual  action,'  she  ad- 
mits, .  .  .  "in  the  settlement  of  any  ques- 
tion of  duty  in  the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  where  Miss 
Willard  and  I  differed  in  judgment,  I  always 
yielded  mine  to  hers.' 

But  from  the  first  two  or  three  things  were 
conspiring  to  weaken  this  "sweet  coercion  of 
personal  affection."  Mrs.  Foster  was  not  so 
strong  an  executive  as  Miss  Willard,  having 
been  engaged,  during  the  other's  apprentice- 
ship as  an  educator,  "in  domestic  affairs  and 
the  care  of  little  children."  But  she  was  just 
as  grimly  conscientious;  she  required  herself 
as  much  to  be  true  to  God  and  her  own  con- 
science. Devoted  as  she  was  to  Miss  Willard 
and  the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  she  could  be  expected,  like 
her  father,  to  renounce  her  "faithfulness,'  if 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  257 

at  any  time  she  could  not  be  true.  And  be- 
sides Scripture  and  conscience,  she  was,  with 
her  experience  of  the  world,  beginning  to  see 
the  claims  of  certain  other  guides.  She  might 
try  to  serve  these  also,  and  hence  bring  on  a 
conflict. 

In  the  early  eighties  she  was  pained  to  note 
certain  acts  of  Miss  Willard  which  she  con- 
sidered mistaken  and  rash.  At  the  convention 
in  Washington  in  1881,  the  president  asked  "us 
here  at  the  nation's  Capitol  to  pledge  our 
allegiance  to  the  new  party  which  she  pro- 
phesied would  unite  North  and  South,  help  on 
the  work  of  constitutional  prohibition  and  the 
enfranchisement  of  women.'  The  new  party 
was  the  Prohibition  Party.  Miss  Willard 's  re- 
quest was  not  formal,  and  it  passed  unheeded 
by  the  general  body  of  women.  Only  Mrs. 
Foster,  a  lawyer  and  the  wife  of  a  lawyer, 
marked  its  trend  and  knew  it  dangerous. 

All  the  successes  of  temperance  in  the  past 
had  been  won  through  non-partisan  methods. 
Temperance  was  a  moral  question  on  which  all 
men  could  unite,  irrespective  of  their  political 
views,  as  they  had  in  Iowa.  The  Union  had  no 
excuse  for  going  further  than  that  into  party 
politics.  "What  has  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  to  do  with 
tariff  or  free  trade,  with  hard  or  soft 
money,  with  railroads  or  mines?"  Mrs.  Fos- 
ter asked.  Now,  suppose  one  party  should 
announce  a  temperance  plank,  and  the  Union 
should  form  an  alliance  with  it  on  account  of 
the  plank,  then  all  other  parties, — containing  a 


258    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

large  share  of  temperance  men, — would  be  made 
inimical  to  temperance,  merely  because  it  con- 
sorted with  strictly  political  doctrines  which 
they  opposed.  The  third  party  vote  did  not 
represent  five  per  cent  of  the  prohibitory  senti- 
ment of  the  country.  By  endorsing  such  a 
party,  therefore,  the  Union  would  offend  ninety- 
five  per  cent  of  its  friends,  and  defeat  the  legis- 
lation for  which  it  was  laboring.  Yet,  unless 
she  misread  the  signs,  Miss  Willard  was  surely 
working  up  to  that  endorsement. 

Still  sustained  by  her  affection  and  believing 
no  "such  arrogant  assumption  of  power  would 
ever  be  attempted,'  she  protested,  but  mildly, 
and  in  private,  although  the  assumption  was 
hinted  at  more  clearly  in  every  succeeding  con- 
vention. Finally,  in  1884,  at  St.  Louis,  the  con- 
vention voted  flatly  to  "lend  their  influence  to 
the  Prohibition  Party."  Then  and  there  Mrs. 
Foster  rebelled.  Miss  Willard  would  not,  per- 
haps could  not,  see  the  fatuity  of  third  party 
action.  "God  had  so  honored  woman's  temper- 
ance work,"  Mrs.  Foster  says,  "that  I  believe 
she  was  confused  with  expectation  of  a  popular 
uprising  under  the  leadership  of  the  W.  C.  T 
U.  with  her  at  its  head." 

"A  great  party  hurled  from  power  in  '84, 
the  speedy  dominance  of  the  third  party,  the 
enfranchisement  of  women  and  the  overthrow 
of  the  liquor  traffic,  all  soon  following,  were 
they  to  be  successive  stages  in  the  victorious 
march  which  should  usher  her  in  as  the  nation 
deliverer  ? ' ' 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  259 

Convinced  of  her  leader's  "political  lunacy" 
and  suspecting  her  ambition,  Mrs.  Foster's 
loyalty  began  to  weaken.  Then,  under  the 
party  policy,  legislative  action  was  ordered 
which  she  would  have  to  conduct.  She  resigned 
from  her  official  relation  to  the  National 
Union.  She  "did  this  with  reluctance,  for  she 
loved  the  women  and  loved  the  work,  but  there 
was  no  other  honorable  course  open  to  her." 

Her  own  state  was  ready  to  stand  by  her 
for  weal  or  woe.  At  the  next  annual  meeting 
it  elected  her  president  of  the  Iowa  Union. 
And  at  the  National  Convention,  1885,  in  Phila- 
delphia, Iowa  ranked  solidly  behind  her  in  a 
protest:  "With  a  deep  sense  of  grave  respon- 
sibility— and  with  a  conviction  of  duty  so  over- 
mastering that  it  will  not  permit  us  to  be  silent, 
we  solemnly,  and  in  the  presence  of  Him  whose 
name  we  bear,  protest  against  the  action  of  this 
Convention  in  (committing  this  Christian  or- 
ganization to  the  aid  and  support  of  a  political 
party."  Mrs.  Foster's  reasons  were  stated. 
The  women  signed : 

Here  we  stand; 

We  can  do  no  other; 

So  help  us  God.     Amen. 

The  same  protest  was  offered  in  '86  and  again 
in  '87.  Then  in  1888  at  New  York,  while  Mrs. 
Foster  was  on  the  floor  and  speaking,  someone 
moved  the  previous  question.  Miss  Willard,  in 
the  chair,  sustained  the  previous  question,  and 
Iowa  was  thereby  denied  the  right  to  be  heard. 


260    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

In  a  letter  to  "Dear  Judith,"  Miss  Willard 
claims,  "In  every  parliamentary  ruling  I 
acted  up  to  my  knowledge  and  light.  .  .  . 
Believe  me,  ever  with  an  earnest  purpose  to  do 
right,  your  friend  and  sister.'  Mrs.  Foster, 
however,  replied  coldly,  pointing  to  the  injus- 
tice done  her  and  her  state,  and  plainly  dates 
the  end  of  their  friendship  by  closing,  "With 
tender  memories  of  the  days  of  'Auld  Lang 
Syne.'  " 

The  final  split  was  now  very  near.  The  sum- 
mer following,  Iowa  refused  its  dues  to  the  na- 
tional treasury,  claiming  they  were  diverted 
for  third  party  political  work.  In  the  fall  con- 
vention of  the  National  Union  at  Chicago,  a 
resolution  was  read  to  the  effect  that  anyone 
unfriendly  to  the  third  party  "is  hereby  de- 
clared disloyal  to  our  organization.7  Many, 
even  of  Miss  Willard 's  own  retainers,  felt  that 
this  was  straining  the  national  authority;  and 
as  the  reading  finished,  all  eyes  turned  upon 
the  section  where  the  Iowa  delegation  sat.  At 
least  they  would  try  to  obstruct  the  procedure. 
But  no;  obstruction  was  too  mild!  There  was 
a  moment  of  silence;  then  a  murmur;  then  a 
general  rustling;  then  a  figure,  that  of  Mrs. 
Foster,  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  delegation; 
she  spoke  a  few  words,  short  and  firm ;  and  the 
small  knot  of  women  arose,  moved  into  the 
aisle ;  and  with  Mrs.  Foster  at  their  head  they 
silently  filed  through  the  door  which  swung  to 
upon  an  assembly  that  had  not  yet  begun  to 
breathe. 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  261 

Iowa  had  seceded  from  the  National  lUnion. 
Judith  Ellen  Foster  had  disrupted  the  great- 
est organization  of  women  that  the  world,  up 
to  that  time,  had  seen.  Were  they  not  right 
who  said  that  henceforth  woman's  influence  for 
social  righteousness  was  to  be  exerted  in  a  dif- 
ferent way? 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  with  this  break 
the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union 
passed  the  crest  of  its  power  and  began  the 
descent.  For  the  decline  of  the  organization, 
Mrs.  Foster  was  bitterly  blamed.  She  was 
called  a  "disturber  of  the  peace,"  a  "Judas," 
a  "sender  of  spurious  reports/  a  "receiver 
of  bribes."  She  defended  herself  by  logic  and 
plain  statement — without  a  flash  of  temper  or 
a  tinge  of  malice.  She  persistd  in  her  own 
course,  even  while  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  dashed  itself 
upon  the  rocks,  "for  the  cause  of  temperance,' 
she  said,  "is  dearer  to  me  than  that  Union.' 
And  since  no  temperance  law  has  ever  been  en- 
acted, by  a  Prohibition  Party,  but  many  by  gen- 
eral non-partisan  vote,  history  seems  to  uphold 
her  judgment. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  on  a  trip  to 
England  she  heard  from  Hannah  Whitall 
Smith  the  contents  of  an  unpublished  book, 
"The  Philosophy  Of  Fanaticism."  She  wrote 
in  her  diary,  "Hannah  says  people  become 
fanatics  because  they  listen  to  one  voice — they 
think  it  the  voice  of  God  in  the  soul.  She  says 
we  must  not  take  any  new  position  in  matters 


262    HEKOINES  OF  MODERN  PROGEESS 

of  faitH  and  conduct  till  four  voices  unite  in 
approval  and  direction.    These  voices  are 

The  voice  of  Scripture. 
The  voice  of  the  spirit  within. 
The  voice  of  circumstance. 
The  voice  of  common  sense. 

"When  these  unite,  go  ahead;  when  even  one 
is  lacking,  stay  where  you  are.  I  have  known 
some  of  the  same  and  similar  instances  of  ship- 
wreck of  noble  craft. ' ' 

The  W.  C.  T.  IL,  in  Mrs.  Foster's  opinion, 
may  have  heard  the  voices  of  Scripture  and  the 
spirit  within;  but  it  assuredly  had  not  heeded 
those  of  circumstance  and  common  sense. 
Mrs.  Foster  acknowledged  the  claims  of  these 
two  latter  guides  also.  For  them  she  had 
divided  the  Temperance  Union,  though,  as  she 
said,  it  "almost  broke  her  heart.'  But  with 
them  she  was  rounding  out  her  character  and 
preparing  herself  for  her  greatest  work. 

This  dissension  from  the  Prohibition  Party 
alliance  did  not  mean  that  Mrs.  Foster  reposed 
no  faith  in  politics.  On  the  contrary,  she 
favored  working  with  every  party  that  would 
help  disable  the  saloon.  "In  absolute  fealty  to 
religious  conviction  and  patriotic  devotion,  I 
advise  every  temperance  woman  to  lend  her  in- 
fluence to  that  party  which  she  believes  gives 
the  best  embodiment  of  prohibition  principles 
and  will  most  surely  protect  the  home."  In 
some  localities  the  Prohibition  Party  might  do 
this,  in  others  the  Democratic,  in  others  the 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  263 

Republican.  For  her,  privately,  "I  most  un- 
qualifiedly state  that  I  believe  the  Republican 
Party  does  this.  Nine-tenths  of  the  voting 
temperance  sentiment  of  the  country  Is  em- 
bodied in  the  Republican  Party. " 

Mrs.  Foster  had  always  been  a  Republican. 
She  believed  that  "that  party  is  the  party  of 
action ;  its  breath  is  progress ;  its  speech  is  the 
language  of  the  world;  its  dialect  the  rhetoric 
of  the  home  and  the  farm  and  the  shop.'  In 
that  conviction  she  had,  in  1884,  spoken  in  ad- 
vocacy of  the  election  of  Blaine. 

She  now  saw  yet  another  reason  for  adher- 
ence to  the  party.  "Its  heroic  constituencies 
are  the  thinking,  moving,  vital  elements  of 
American  life.  It  holds  within  its  ranks  the 
armies  of  all  reforms" — among  others,  the 
greatest  number  of  temperance  men.  Hence 
she  ought  to  maintain  it  in  office,  as  against  its 
rivals  which  aggregated  less  temperance  senti- 
ment. 

She  could  not,  of  course,  ask  it  to  insert  a 
prohibition  plank  in  its  platform.  Temper- 
ance, as  she  had  said,  was  a  moral  question,  for 
all  people  to  consider  on  a  moral  plane,  wholly 
apart  from  their  views  on  tariff  and  soft 
money.  It  was  as  far  above  the  Republicans, 
as  a  party,  as  it  was  above  the  Prohibitionists, 
as  a  party.  To  marry  the  moral  question  and 
the  political  party  would  be  quite  too  gro- 
tesque; it  would  mean  the  subjection  of  onfe  and 
perhaps,  in  the  end,  the  ruin  of  both. 

Nor  did  she  wish  to  tie  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  as 


264    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

an  organization  to  the  party  she  favored. 
What  she  had  said  of  the  other  alliance  held 
true  here  as  well.  Such  an  affiliation  was  im- 
practical to  begin  with.  And  then,  one  might 
as  well  ask  all  W.  C.  T.  U.  women  to  join  the 
Methodist  church,  if  it  should  happen  to  take 
an  advanced  position  on  the  temperance  ques- 
tion. 

Her  theory  was  this,  merely:  the  Republican 
Party,  seated  in  power  for  its  strictly  political 
doctrines,  would  from  mere  weight  of  moral 
excellence  in  its  ranks,  do  more  for  temper- 
ance— as  individuals — than  any  other  party 
could.  It  would  do  more,  too,  for  various  other 
reforms.  Therefore  she  ought  to  support  it. 
Especially  ought  she  to  support  it  against  any 
such  impotent  combination  as  the  Prohibition 
Party  and  the  fond,  misguided  W.  C.  T.  U. 

This  reason,  added  to  her  previous  love  for 
Republicanism,  determined  Mrs.  Foster  now 
to  throw  herself  actively  into  partisan  politics. 

There  was,  furthermore,  a  definite  new  field 
to  cultivate — the  W.  C.  T.  U.  had  shown  her 
it — the  field  of  non-voting  women.  The  vote 
swung  for  the  Prohibitionists  by  the  Temper- 
ance Union  and  the  disintegration  caused  in  the 
rival  parties  had  revealed  what  women  could 
do  in  partisan  politics.  Wives  could  influence 
their  husbands — who  perhaps  had  less  time 
than  they  to  read  and  think.  Mothers  could 
guide  the  minds  of  their  growing  sons,  to  the 
vast  advantage  of  both.  For  "happy  is  that 
mother  whose  ability  to  help  her  child  continues 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTEE  265 

on  from  babyhood  and  manhood  into  maturity. 
Blessed  is  the  son  who  need  not  ]eave  his 
mother  at  the  threshold  of  the  world's  activi- 
ties, but  may  always  and  everywhere  have  her 
help.  .  .  .  Such  mothers  and  such  sons 
shall  bring  to  the  nation,  which  is  only  the 
larger  home,  a  priceless  benediction.' 

The  problem,  then,  was  to  lead  women  to 
think  and  act  sanely  on  political  issues  with 
the  unanimity  and  enthusiasm  that  they  had 
shown  for  party  prohibition.  Evidently  as- 
sociation, on  the  plan  of  the  Temperance  Union 
itself,  to  instruct  the  women  and  prick  them 
into  action  was  the  first  necessity.  The  men 
already  had  such  in  their  Republican  clubs. 
And  the  president  of  the  National  Association 
of  Republican  Clubs  was  Clarkson  of  Iowa,  Mrs. 
Foster's  close  friend. 

Mrs.  Foster's  mind  was  made  up.  The  Re- 
publican Party  was  then  strong  and  buoyant. 
It  then  carried  doctrines  worth  preservation. 
And  women,  wisely  generaled,  could  probably 
give  it  appreciable  help.  In  1888  Mrs.  Foster 
laid  these  propositions  before  the  National  Re- 
publican Committee.  It  met  her  more  than 
half  way.  In  the  woman's  own  simple  story, 
"Headquarters  were  opened  and  a  general 
woman's  campaign  begun.  The  national  colors 
floated  from  the  window,  bearing  the  legend, 
'The  Woman's  National  Republican  Associa- 
tion and  Harrison  and  Morton.'  Of  this  as- 
sociation Mrs.  Foster  was  president. 

That  year  a  quantity  of  partisan  literature 


266    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

was  strewn  through  the  country,  speakers  were 
sent  out,  and  numerous  clubs  were  organized. 
In  many  instances,  says  Mrs.  Foster,  "they 
turned  the  tide  for  the  Republican  ticket." 
After  the  election  Mrs.  Foster  opened  a  law 
office  in  Washington.  Then  in  1892  she  again 
brought  out  her  woman's  association,  fully  or- 
ganized, safely  financed,  and  backed  with  the 
confidence  of  the  party — to  do  a  thing  new  in 
history. 

She  first  went  to  the  national  convention  of 
the  party  in  Minneapolis.  She  hoped  to  bring 
her  work  before  that  body,  but  considered  the 
project  too  bold.  It  was  managed,  however, 
and  to  her  surprise  she  was  led  to  the  platform 
and  introduced.  "Such  a  gathering  of  in- 
telligence is  not  often  witnessed/  she  com- 
ments. "I  cannot  describe  my  emotions  as  I 
found  myself  before  that  vast  sea  of  faces. 
The  physical  effort  to  make  them  hear  took  a 
little  from  the  pleasure  of  speaking,  so  that 
I  cannot  say  I  enjoyed  it,  but  of  course,  I  was 
very  thankful  for  the  opportunity.  The  con- 
vention expressed  its  approval  by  cheers  and 
otherwise,  and  we  were  all  satisfied  and  happy. 
I  cannot  wholly  realize  as  I  am  writing  it,  what 
a  triumph  it  was.  It  is  the  first  honor  of  the 
kind  ever  conferred  upon  a  woman.' 

With  this  assurance,  she  deputed  women  to 
build  up  local  clubs,  and  fifteen  state  clubs  that 
year  acknowledged  the  headship  of  the  na- 
tional. The  object  of  these  was  "to  unite  the 
women  of  this  community  in  educational  work 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTEE  267 

and  social  influence  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
principles  of  the  Republican  party  in  the  home, 
in  the  state  and  in  the  nation.'  The  women 
were  to  study,  discuss,  and  circulate  party 
literature,  exert  all  honorable  pressure  upon 
voters,  especially  first  voters,  and,  above  all, 
use  their  own  ballot  at  every  election  for  which 
women  might  qualify. 

Second,  the  association  carried  on  an  exten- 
sion course  of  political  education.  It  recom- 
mended "The  Home  And  The  Flag  Reading 
Course," — a  set  of  books — non-partisan — on 
history,  civil  government  and  economics.  It 
followed  up  these  with  "The  Home  And  The 
Flag"  series  of  papers  and  pamphlets,  full  of 
political  news  and  argument.  To  stimulate 
study,  it  offered  prizes  for  the  best  essays  writ- 
ten by  women  on  governmental  topics. 

The  association  assisted,  finally,  in  any  im- 
portant local  election.  In  states  where  women 
could  vote,  sample  Australian  ballots  were  is- 
sued; and  in  the  kitchen  tete-a-tete,  the  parlor 
conference,  and  the  general  rally,  women  were 
taught  how  to  mark  them.  Mrs.  Foster,  helped 
by  other  women,  invaded  the  states  on  a  tour 
of  campaign  speaking.  At  one  place  the  street 
parade  was  reckoned  over  a  mile  and  a  quarter 
in  length.  It  was  led  by  automobiles,  wherein 
rode  the  town  dignitaries  in  broadcloth  and 
high  hats,  and  brass  bands  that  mingled 
"America"  with  "Annie  Laurie,"  and  the  lat- 
est ragtime.  There  followed  a  procession  of 
floats,  filled  with  children  all  in  white,  who 


268    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

feverishly  waved  bouquets  and  banners  with 
symbolistic  devices.  Then  came  a  troop  of 
young  women  on  horseback,  attended  by  horse- 
men as  a  guard  of  honor.  And  last,  another 
band  and  a  mob  of  boys  running,  falling,  shout- 
ing, half  choked  and  hidden  in  the  dust.  All 
these  wended  their  way  to  the  courthouse 
square,  where  J.  Ellen  Foster,  a  woman  poli- 
tician, was  to  address  them  from  the  steps. 

So  drums,  banners,  and  red  fire,  dusty  train, 
stuffy  hotel,  and  steaming  auditorium,  tele- 
gram, interview,  caucus,  and  hurried  address 
before  vociferous  throngs  of  both  men  and 
women — these  were  the  things  through  which 
Mrs.  Foster  now  continually  moved.  Occa- 
sionally a  reporter  grew  facetious,  or  remem- 
bered his  gallantry,  and  spoke  of  the  rustle  of 
silks,  the  gloved  applause,  or  the  head  usher, 
11  ^  marked  blonde,  whose  deep  blue  eyes  make 
the  men  do  her  bidding.'  But  generally  it  was 
remarked  that  in  the  steady  march  of  Mrs.  Fos- 
ter 's  logic,  people  forgot  whether  they  were 
men  or  women,  and  knew  only  they  were  voters. 
And  many  of  them  were  voters  of  a  different 
persuasion  from  that  in  which  they  entered  the 
hall. 

In  a  non-suffrage  state  the  fire  was  directed 
at  women  in  the  homes,  who,  it  was  expected, 
would  bring  their  men  about.  With  Helen 
Boswell,  Secretary  of  the  Association,  Mrs. 
Foster  carried  out  in  New  York  city,  a  tene- 
ment house  canvass  which  still  stands  a  classic 
example  of  women's  party  work.  Miss  Bos- 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  269 

well  had  headquarters  on  Broadway,  and  sixty 
women  helpers.  Daily  they  swept  down  upon 
the  foreign  East  side,  taking  it  block  by  block, 
street  by  street,  house  by  house  and, — as  was 
necessary  in  the  congested  parts — literally 
room  by  room.  While  mothers  rocked  cradles 
with  their  feet  and  with  their  hands  sewed  but- 
tons onto  shirts,  the  women  talked  to  them  of 
school,  street  cleaning,  and  health  protection. 
When  younger  women  came  home  fagged  from 
their  day  in  the  department  store  or  the  factory, 
the  canvassers  met  them  with  the  party  prom- 
ises concerning  labor.  As  a  final  measure, 
Miss  Boswell  boiled  down  the  questions  of  the 
hour  into  brief,  simple  pamphlets  in  all  lan- 
guages, and  put  them  into  the  hands  of  the 
children,  who  might  read  them  to  their  parents. 

So,  a  man  coming  home  at  night,  slightly 
fuddled  with  promises  and  a  cheap  cigar,  the 
souvenirs  of  a  street-corner  harangue  by  a 
ward  heeler  for  the  opposition,  would  walk  into 
a  united  family  who  also  had  promises,  but,  in- 
stead of  cigars,  had  reasons.  He  was  indeed 
an  egotist  if  he  did  not  change  his  mind.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  he  generally  did  change  his 
mind,  as  was  shown  on  election  day.  Wards 
went  Republican  that  had  returned  big  Tam- 
many majorities  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

Working  by  these  several  means,  Mrs.  Fos- 
ter earned  wide  repute  as  a  woman  in  politics 
— a  useful  ally  and  a  dangerous  opponent.  In 
election  after  election,  it  was  conceded  that  she 
turned  the  scale  in  various  states  for  Repub- 


270    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

licanism.  Most  candidates  took  pains  to  secure 
her  alliance  in  the  early  preliminaries  of  the 
contest.  A  senator-elect,  foreseeing  opposition 
when  he  came  to  be  seated,  wrote  to  her  pro- 
testing his  good  faith.  A  presidential  candi- 
date refused  to  discuss  his  religious  creed  with 
her,  lest  it  rob  him  of  her  friendship.  "I  re- 
joice in  your  friendship,"  he  added,  "and  I 
rejoice  in  your  faith  in  me,  and  I  hope  always 
to  have  the  benefit  of  your  advice  and  sym- 
pathy. " 

But  her  eminence  as  J.  Ellen  Foster  was 
nothing  compared  to  her  eminence  as  a  woman 
and  a  representative  of  women.  For  she  had 
done  what  few  before  her  had  even  dreamed  of 
doing.  She  had  made  woman  a  recognized  fac- 
tor in  party  politics  and  in  the  party  govern- 
ment of  a  nation. 

Other  women  were  asking  for  the  suffrage, 
deeming  that  essential  before  political  work 
could  begin.  Mrs.  Foster  desired  the  suffrage 
too;  but  she  knew  it  would,  in  some  states,  be 
a  long  while  coming;  and  she  insisted  that 
meanwhile  woman,  just  as  she  was,  should  have 
a  political  education  and  assert  herself  as  a 
person  to  whom  government  is  a  natural  in- 
terest. She  prepared  the  way  for  the  general 
participation  of  non-voting  women  in  partisan 
politics — as  in  the  presidential  campaign  of 
1912.  J.  Ellen  Foster  made  woman  conscious 
of  herself  as  a  political  being.  In  winning 
prominence  for  herself,  therefore,  she  opened 
a  vast  new  room  in  the  house  of  womanhood. 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  271 

She  was  still,  in  all  essentials,  the  quiet, 
motherly  person  she  had  always  been.  Her 
personality,  a  journalist  observes,  pervaded 
even  the  national  headquarters.  "No  ser- 
geant-at-arms  or  pert  office  boy  stepped  forward 
to  inquire  the  caller's  business.  No  tobacco 
smoke  hung  mistily,  obscuring  the  view.  No 
excited  groups  harangued  and  argued  in  hoarse 
whispers.  No  frock-coated  statesmen  hurried 
in  and  out,  winding  their  ways  through  lanes 
of  shaking  hands.  No  messenger  boys  dashed 
among  the  throng,  waving  telegrams  from  high 
personages.  The  babel  of  noises,  the  rapid 
shifting  of  groups  were  absent. " 

As  to  her  religion  all  this  time — it  was  dur- 
ing this  period  that,  being  in  Boston,  she  took 
the  communion  in  a  strange  church,  and  wrote 
in  her  journal,  "The  wine,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
was  the  wine  of  commerce  and  fermented,  so 
I  could  only  touch  my  lips  in  honor  of  the  thing 
symbolized,  while  I  repudiated  the  symbol  it- 
self." And  on  the  very  Sunday  before  she 
addressed  the  National  ^Republican  Convention 
at  Minneapolis  she  spoke  on  temperance  in 
the  Baptist  church,  and  on  Tuesday  and  Wed- 
nesday of  the  same  week,  at  the  Methodist 
church. 

No,  she  was  not  less  what  she  had  been ;  she 
still  gave  heed  to  the  voices  of  Scripture  and 
conscience,  but  she  had  learned  to  obey  two 
others  also.  These  estranged  her  from  certain 
people  and  groups  of  people  with  a  high  moral 
purpose;  but  they  qualified  her  for  service  of 


272    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

high  moral  purpose  and  accomplishment  in 
politics,  a  science  of  Circumstance  and  Com- 
mon Sense.  She  had  made  her  piety  so  prac- 
tical that  it  combined  with  and  helped  control 
the  greatest  practical  organization  in  the  world. 

As  Mrs.  Foster  was  the  first,  she  remained 
the  only  president  of  the  Woman's  Republican 
Association,  until  her  death,  August  11,  1910. 
She  did  not,  however,  spend  all  her  strength 
in  the  ferment  of  campaign  year.  In  her  last 
period,  she  seemed  to  shoulder  all  labors  pos- 
sible to  womankind. 

She  was  Advocate  General  for  the  National 
Relief  Association  that  aided  the  Red  Cross — 
of  the  board  of  managers  of  which  she  was 
long  a  member — in  Cuba.  She  was  delegate 
for  the  United  States,  to  a  Red  Cross  Conven- 
tion in  St.  Petersburg.  She  accompanied  the 
Taft  party  to  the  Philippines,  and,  at  President 
Roosevelt's  request,  looked  privately  into  the 
status  of  women  and  children  in  the  islands. 
Her  recommendations,  quickly  translated  into 
executive  orders,  played  no  small  part  in  the 
educational  and  economic  remaking  of  the 
people  of  the  islands.  She  then  remained  in 
the  orient  and  toured  the  remote  mission  sta- 
tions, to  lecture  in  them  and  to  study  their 
works. 

On  her  return  to  America,  Mrs.  Foster  as- 
sumed the  support  of  an  orphan  boy  in  the  mis- 
sion school  at  Pekin.  She  was  elected  trustee 
of  her  church,  and  assistant  superintendent  of 
Sunday-school.  She  interested  herself  in  the 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  273 

local  Y.  W.  C.  A.  Incessantly  busy  as  she  was 
with  big  things,  she  crowded  her  spare  minutes 
with  small  things, — which  she  appeared  to  love 
no  less.  At  the  end,  she  was  ill  only  four  hours 
before  she  died;  people  said  she  had  not  had 
time  to  be  ill.  But  besides  all  these  activities, 
there  were  some  of  another  class  in  Mrs.  Fos- 
ter's latest  period.  They  began  back  in  the 
period  of  the  Spanish  War.  The  American 
volunteers  had  mobilized  in  a  few  large  stations 
before  starting  to  Cuba.  The  sanitation  was 
bad  in  the  barracks,  and  the  food  ill-selected, 
and  men  were  dying  of  fever.  Just  what  were 
the  conditions  and  what  their  cause,  and  what 
could  be  done  for  instant  remedy?  The  govern- 
ment had  to  know.  McKinley,  strange  to  say, 
turned  to  a  woman,  J.  Ellen  Foster.  She  in- 
spected the  stations  and  reported.  The  gov- 
ernment, without  further  question,  ordered  im- 
provements that  checked  the  fever,  and  saved 
the  men  for  the  war  and  for  their  homes. 

This  prompt  obedience  to  her  words  caused 
Mrs.  Foster  to  stop  and  think.  She  had  in  her 
time  used  many  agencies  for  doing  good.  But 
here — 

She  was  still  thinking  when  a  letter  came  to 
her  from  a  Mrs.  Black  of  Nebraska.  The 
soldiers  were  returning  from  the  war;  in  the 
receiving  station  at  Montauk  Point  they  were 
dying  by  the  score;  and  those  that  died  were 
buried  there — within  a  day  or  two  of  home. 
Leslie  Black  was  among  the  victims — and  his 
mother  wanted  his  body  sent  home.  There 


274    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

was  nothing  she  would  not  give  to  have  it  done ! 
What,  asked  the  letter,  would  Mrs.  Foster  ad- 
vise? Mrs.  Foster  did  not  wait  to  advise,  but 
went  to  President  McKinley.  Leslie  Black 
was  sent  home;  and  in  a  few  days  an  order 
went  out  that  all  Leslie  Blacks  should  be 
transported  to  their  own  people  for  burial. 
Yes,  there  was  no  doubt  of  it ;  Mrs.  Foster  had 
learned  to  use  another  great  instrument  for 
good — the  United  States  Government. 

It  must  have  pleased  her  then  in  1906  when 
Roosevelt  detailed  her  to  study  the  condition 
of  woman  and  child  workers  throughout  the 
nation.  Her  findings  were  conveyed  to  the 
President  in  a  confidential  report  that  fur- 
nished the  basis  for  influencing  national  and 
state  action ;  but  Mrs.  Foster  did  not  stop  with 
a  mere  report.  Working  actively  in  many  dif- 
ferent ways — "lobbying,"  writing,  speaking, 
educating, — she  mothered  legislation  for  the 
protection  of  the  child  and  woman  worker.  An 
opportunity  to  further  the  cause  came  when 
she  was  made  chairman  of  the  committee  on 
child  labor  of  the  National  Society  of  the 
Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution;  "we 
will  study  the  past  not  to  boast  we  are  de- 
scended from  its  heroes,  but  to  show  ourselves 
worthy  of  the  inheritance  they  left  us,'  she 
announced.  For  the  Federal  Children's 
Bureau,  created  a  year  and  more  after  her 
death,  she  labored  hard.  But  she  saw  that 
thorough-going  national  child  labor  legislation 
was  impossible  for  the  present;  without  ceas- 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTEE  275 

ing  tactfully  and  quietly  to  urge  it,  she  threw 
her  energy  into  the  advocacy  of  state  laws  to 
protect  the  young  worker  and  the  weak.  Again, 
she  showed  that  she  heard  the  Four  Voices  and 
not  two  alone. 

In  1908,  finally,  Mrs.  Foster  was  appointed 
special  agent  of  the  Department  of  Justice  to 
inspect  United  States  criminals  in  the  federal 
and  state  prisons.  The  office  was  an  old  one. 
Men  had  held  it  for  years  and  done — or  left  un- 
done— their  duties  so  peacefully  that,  with  an 
exception  or  two,  the  world  knew  them  not. 
Mrs.  Foster,  however,  was  proud  with  her 
power,  a  new  power  for  a  woman.  She  in- 
spected with  her  eyes  open;  and  her  revela- 
tions were  the  sensation  of  a  year.  Eight  in 
the  District  of  Columbia  the  prisoners  were 
crowded,  unclean,  and  feeding  from  tin 
troughs — little  better  than  those  Elizabeth 
Fry  saw  in  Newgate  jail  a  hundred  years 
before.  The  women  prisoners  were  espe- 
cially unfortunate.  Many  prison  boards,  com- 
posed of  men,  were  too  lax  in  disci- 
pline to  do  the  women  good;  others  were  too 
harsh.  Then,  there  was  no  federal  prison  for 
them  and  they  were  farmed  out  to  the  differ- 
ent states,  where  their  teaching  was  indiffer- 
ent, and  they  were  confined  in  tiny,  sunless 
cells. 

The  Government  acted  immediately  upon 
Mrs.  Foster's  report.  Orders  were  given  for 
the  enlargement  and  modernization  of  the 
Washington  prison  and  for  the  erection  of  a  re- 


276    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

formatory  on  a  farm  near  by.  A  "woman's 
wing'  was  put  under  construction  at  Leaven- 
worth,  Kansas.  "I  can  turn  my  mind  to  noth- 
ing else,'  she  wrote.  "I  am  thinking  lavato- 
ries, paint,  shelves,  stoves  and  beds.  My  mind 
is  with  the  poor  women.  Think  of  it;  these 
women  are  to  have  a  chance  to  work  out  in  their 
own  grounds  and  enjoy  God's  free  air  and  sun- 
shine.' And  it  was  at  her  suggestion  that  the 
National  Prison  Labor  Committee  was  formed, 
to  regulate  prison  labor  in  the  state  and  na- 
tion and  to  study  it  and  apply  the  conclusions 
for  the  benefit  of  free  labor  everywhere. 

In  effect,  Mrs.  Foster  was  able  late  in  life 
to  use  for  moral  or  humanitarian  ends  the  most 
powerful  of  all  organizations,  the  constituted 
government. 

She  had  used  many  agencies — the  church,  the 
law,  the  Temperance  Union.  When  the  Union 
erred  in  policy  she  had  cut  loose  from  it,  to  help 
in  politics.  Now  her  political  success  had 
given  her  influence  with  the  officials  elected 
by  her  party  and  those  officials,  as  she  had 
boasted,  were  good  men,  first  in  the  army  of 
reform :  they  let  her  use  the  powers  of  govern- 
ment for  the  moral  works  which  were  to  her  th 
real  end  of  living. 

Mrs.  Foster  in  her  last  years  carried  on  re 
forms  that  she  never  thought  of  in  the  early 
stages  of  her  life.  And  she  carried  them  on 
by  means  that  the  church  worker,  the  lawyer, 
even  the  temperance  woman  could  not  have 
imagined.  Her  point  of  pride  was  now  that 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  277 

she  could  get  the  United  States  Government  to 
do  them  for  her.  She  was  like  one  who 
marches  out  to  battle  with  a  wooden  sword, 
leading  a  dozen  men,  and  comes  back,  after 
victories,  fully  armed,  at  the  head  of  an  army. 

Two  brief  incidents  of  her  last  years  set  her 
character  in  clear  light.  There  had  been  a 
strike  of  miners  in  a  western  state.  Mrs.  Fos- 
ter arrived  in  the  town  while  the  strife  was 
yet  hot,  to  make  a  political  speech.  She  men- 
tioned the  name  of  a  labor  leader.  The  miners 
cheered.  Mrs.  Foster  let  them  go  on  as  long 
as  they  would.  i  l  All  right, ' '  she  said.  ' '  Cheer 
him.  For  he  is  a  man  on  whom  no  blood 
stain  rests.  He  has  not  desecrated  the  flag 
with  crimes  committed  in  the  name  of  labor!' 

As  she  spoke  the  miners  had  fallen  silent 
and  glum.  They  were  stained  with  blood; 
they  had  desecrated  the  flag. 

"Now,  look  here!"  the  woman  cried. 

She  snatched  a  little  flag  which  she  always 
wore  on  her  bosom,  and  held  it  high. 

"Here  is  your  flag!"  she  said.  "You  have 
cheered  your  leader.  Cheer  this.' 

There  was  not  a  sound  in  the  hall. 

"Cheer  it,"  she  said  firmly. 

Still  no  sound. 

"I'll  wait  right  here,"  she  said,  raising  the 
flag  higher,  "till  you  do  cheer  it.  Cheer!' 

Some  man  found  his  voice  in  a  faint  cry.  A 
dozen  hands  went  up,  and  a  dozen  voices 
shouted.  The  whole  hall  arose  as  a  man  and 
for  five  minutes  they  cheered  while  the  win- 


278    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

dows  rattled.  The  town  went  Republican  in 
that  election,  through  the  miners'  admiration 
for  J.  Ellen  Foster.  She  had  the  courage,  even 
while  pleading  for  votes,  to  stand  on  her  pa- 
triotism and  her  sense  of  right.  \ 

The  other  incident — one  that  occurred  on 
the  same  trip — Mrs.  Foster  herself  relates. 
"I  was  in  a  region  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. As  I  was  about  to  get  into  the  carriage, 
a  woman  said,  'Did  you  once  live  in  Iowa  and 
make  speeches  there!'  I  answered  that  I  cer- 
tainly did.  'Well,'  she  said,  'I  thought  it  was 
you.  I  heard  you  on  temperance  when  I  was  a 
little  girl.  I  do  not  remember  the  speech  at 
all.  But  when  I  went  with  my  mother  to  speak 
with  you  after  the  lecture,  you  took  my  hand 
and  said,  'Who  is  this  sweet  faced  little  girl?' 
My  mother  was  a  good  woman,  but  she  did  not 
have  much  time  to  make  of  me.  No  one  ever 
told  me  I  had  a  sweet  face;  I  looked  in  the 
glass  when  I  went  home  to  see  if  I  really  was 
sweet  looking;  many  a  time  when  I  have  seen 
what  beauty  I  had  going  with  weather  and  hard 
work,  I  have  said  to  myself,  Mrs.  Foster  said 
I  was  sweet  looking  little  girl,  and  I'll  be  sweet 
whether  I  look  it  or  not!' 

"I  haven't  seen  the  woman  since,  but  I'm  glad 
I  told  her  twenty  years  ago  that  she  was  sweet 
faced.  I  resolved  that  night  as  I  slept  in  the 
log  cabin  on  the  divide,  'I'll  say  all  the  good 
things  I  can  of  every  one,  and  I'll  not  say  an 
unkind  word  of  anyone!' 

Thus  behind  all  her  public  work — the  fever 


J.  ELLEN  FOSTER  279 

of  temperance  crusades,  the  pain  and  worry  of 
secession,  the  loud  excitement  of  political  con- 
flict, the  responsibility  of  official  missions — the 
serene  religious  background,  the  thought  of 
God,  remained  secure.  Nor  was  there  any 
separation  of  her  life  into  compartments;  for 
it  was  always  out  of  that  background  that  her 
public  deeds  one  by  one  naturally  emerged. 

She  declared  the  roundedness  of  woman's 
character:  her  right  to  work  in  politics,  and 
through  politics  and  government  for  great  re- 
forms. Yet  that  was  not  entirely  for  an  end 
in  itself;  it  was  for  "the  overthrow  of  all  sin 
and  the  setting  up  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  in 
this  dear  land  of  ours." 


JANE  ADDAMS 

WHEN  Jane  Addams  was  three  and  a  half 
years  old,  she,  one  day  coming  home 
from  play,  saw  two  flags  waving  above  the 
gate  posts  of  her  father's  yard — an  American 
flag  and  a  flag  of  black.  She  sped  tip  the 
gravel  walk  and  into  the  house.  "What  were 
the  flags  there  for?"  Her  father  answered 
solemnly  and  with  tears,  that  the  greatest  man 
in  the  world  had  died.  That  man  had  been 
Mr.  Addams'  personal  friend.  His  name  was 
Lincoln. 

The  incident  laid  hold  of  the  little  girl's 
fancy  not  so  much  because  of  Lincoln's  mar- 
tyrdom as  because  of  her  father's  intimacy 
with  him.  And  of  another  occasion  when  Mr. 
Addams  was  plunged  into  gloom  over  the  death 
of  Joseph  Mazzini,  the  Italian  patriot,  she  says, 
"I  was  filled  with  pride  that  I  knew  a  man 
who  held  converse  with  great  minds,  and  who 
really  sorrowed  and  rejoiced  over  happenings 
across  the  sea." 

In  her  childish  eyes,  this  father  was  great  in 
his  own  right,  too.  He  was  a  state  senator  in 
Illinois,  a  respected  miller  in  Cedarville,  and, 
above  all,  a  man  of  imposing  figure,  and  a 
grave  Quaker  mien.  What  small  girl  would 
not  venerate  him?  Whether  she  studied  in  the 
village  school,  as  she  did  in  winter,  or  rambled 

280 


JANE  ADDAMS  281 

in  summer  over  the  beautiful  country  around 
Cedarville,  the  sense  of  his  superiority  lay 
heavy  upon  her.  It  was  doubtless  in  tribute  to 
some  of  his  teachings  that  she  and  her  step- 
brother reared  an  altar  by  the  mill  stream,  and 
thither  brought  for  sacrifice  all  the  snakes  they 
could  kill,  from  weary  distances,  "dangling 
between  two  sticks. "  She  so  much  admired 
his  miller's  thumb  that  in  order  to  flatten  hers 
in  the  same  way  she  would  sit  for  hours  by 
the  revolving  mill  stones  rubbing  the  crushed 
grain.  At  night,  when  she  had  told  a  false- 
hood, she  could  not  sleep  until  she  slipped  from 
her  room  and  defied  all  the  perils  of  a  cold, 
dark  stair  and  hallway,  to  confess  at  his  bed- 
side. 

Sometimes  her  pride  in  him  had  a  curious 
effect  upon  herself.  In  person  undersized  and 
delicate,  she  imagined  she  was  unfit  for  his 
company.  When  strangers  were  to  visit  the 
Sunday-school,  she  prayed  they  might  not  asso- 
ciate him,  the  handsome  and  famous  parent, 
with  her,  the  homely  girl.  And  to  lessen  the 
chance  of  such  a  disgrace  for  him,  she  would 
forego  the  churchward  trip  at  his  side  and  walk 
with  her  less  distinguished  uncle. 

But  this  humility  was  soon  banished.  One 
afternoon  on  the  main  street  of  a  neighboring 
city  she  met  him  coming  out  of  a  bank.  The 
street  was  thronged  with  people  of  wealth  and 

•]uon.  Happily,  she  thought,  none  of  them 
were  aware  of  her  connection  with  the  gentle- 
V'l  the  high  silk  hat.  But  what  did  he  do, 


282    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PROGRESS 

this  exalted  being,  but  doff  his  hat  and  swing 
it  wide,  and  bow  imposingly,  right  there  in 
the  eye  of  all  the  public ! 

The  truth  is  that  Mr.  Addams  did  not  in  the 
least  deprecate  either  the  looks  or  the  gifts  of 
his  daughter.  With  all  his  senatorial  pomp  he 
could  descend  easily  to  her  level.  He  told  her 
the  meaning  of  the  news  in  the  papers;  talked 
familiarly  of  public  men  and  what  they  were 
doing;  and  in  the  kindliest  way  both  praised 
her  virtues  and  confessed  her  for  her  sins. 
"I  never  recall  those  early  conversations  with 
my  father,'  Miss  Addams  says,  "nor  a  score 
of  others  like  them,  but  there  comes  into  my 
mind  a  line  from  Mrs.  Browning  in  which  a 
daughter  describes  her  relations  with  her 
father : 

He  wrapt  me  in  his  large  man's  doublet, 

Careless  did  it  fit  or  no. ' 

By  slow  degrees  she  came  to  understand  his 
peculiar  rule  of  conduct :  that  it  is  the  privilege 
of  the  strong  and  the  good  to  demean  them- 
selves simply,  if  not  humbly,  and  to  find  points 
of  contact  with  the  lowest. 

And  then  he  had  another  lesson  to  teach. 
One  Sunday  morning,  arrayed  in  a  gorgeous 
new  cloak,  she  came  to  him  for  approval.  He 
said  it  was  a  very  pretty  cloak;  but,  to  her 
chagrin,  he  added  that  she  had  better  wear  an 
old  garment  instead,  because  the  splendor  of 
this  would  provoke  envy  and  discontent  in 
other  little  girls.  Those  girls,  he  said,  might 
be  as  favored  as  she  with  education  and 


JANE  ADDAMS  283 

ligion — the  really  important  things.  But  if 
she  paraded  her  fine  clothes  it  might  seem  that 
she  was  different,  and  superior — and  that 
would  be  very  stupid.  The  girl  laid  aside  her 
cloak.  It  cost  her  some  pangs  of  self-sacri- 
fice. But  the  moral  of  the  incident  was  clear. 
As  her  great  parent  made  himself  equal  to 
her,  so  she  must  obliterate  all  divisions  be- 
tween herself  and  those  less  fortunate. 

Yet  this  equality  did  not  imply  any  abase- 
ment of  one's  own  character.  Quite  the 
contrary.  That  she  might  pattern  after  the 
illustrious  men  of  history,  Mr.  Addams  re- 
warded her  five  cents  for  each  life  of  a 
Plutarch  hero  that  she  could  report  on,  and 
ten  cents  for  each  signer  of  the  Declara- 
ation  of  Independence.  When  she  fled  to  him 
with  a  confession,  he  would  comment,  a  bit 
sternly,  that  if  she  told  lies  he  was  glad  she 
"felt  too  bad  to  go  to  sleep  afterwards."  To 
her  eager  questions  upon  religious  doctrine  he 
said  "it  was  very  important  not  to  pretend  to 
understand  what  you  didn't  understand,  and 
that  you  must  always  be  honest  with  yourself  X 
inside,  whatever  happened."  And  the  man's 
own  clear  integrity,  no  doubt,  impressed  her 
quite  as  much  as  any  of  his  precepts.  For  it 
was  said  of  him  that  he  had  never  been  offered 
a  bribe,  "because  bad  men  were  instinctively 
afraid  of  him.' 

Certainly  while  the  girl  retained  her  hold  on 
these  principles  no  effort  to  seem  like  other 
people  could  dangerously  lower  her  own  ex- 


284    HEROINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGRESS 

cellence.  Would  she  retain  them — or  could 
she,  as  the  ^ears  went  on, — along  with  a  prac- 
tice of  equality? 

At  seventeen,  Miss  Addams  entered  Rock- 
ford  College.  During  her  four  years  there, 
she  specialized  in  history  and  "mental"  and 
" moral'  philosophy.  But  these  improving 
studies  were  not  the  ones  that  told  most  upon 
her  career. 

Rockford,  like  many  colleges  in  those  days, 
drilled  its  students  in  religion  rather  more  than 
in  literature  and  science.  Attendance  at  chapel 
and  Scripture  reading  was  compulsory.  Every 
winter  the  quiet  of  the  place  would  be  up- 
heaved by  a  great  revival.  A  girl  who  re- 
mained outside  the  church  ran  the  risk  of  being 
thought  either  blind  or  stubborn.  The  stand- 
ard of  perfection  was  set  by  those  who  joined 
early  and,  before  graduation,  enlisted  for  the 
foreign  missionary  field. 

Jane  Addams  did  not  hear  the  missionary 
call,  nor  was  she  even  converted.  "I  was 
singularly  unresponsive  to  all  these  forms  of 
emotional  appeal,"  she  says,  "although  I  be- 
came unspeakably  embarrassed  when  they 
were  presented  to  me  at  close  range.7  And 
yet,  in  her  own  way,  she  grew  as  fast  reli- 
giously as  any  of  her  classmates. 
-  She  could  not  see  the  truth  that  others  ap- 
peared to  see.  Well,  then,  she  would  not  pre- 
tend that  she  saw  it.  At  any  hazard  she  would 
be  "honest  with  herself  inside."  That  was 
her  father's  style  of  mental  honesty,  and  also 


JANE  ADDAMS  285 

Emerson's — an  author  whom  she  revered  so 
much  that  "in  a  state  of  ecstatic  energy'  she 
cleaned  the  overshoes  of  a  mere  friend  of  his 
who  lectured  at  the  college.  She  could  not 
grasp  the  faith  that  her  fellows  did.  There- 
fore, like  her  father  and  Emerson,  she  would 
search  out  an  independent  faith  of  her  own. 
In  this  roundabout  way  the  religious  fervor  in 
Kockford  ripened  unexpected  fruit. 

Every  Sunday  morning  Miss  Addams  read 
for  an  hour  in  the  Greek  testament  in  her 
teacher's  room — read  not  by  chapter  and  verse, 
but  an  entire  gospel  at  a  time.  She  liked  this 
record  of  a  "wonderful  L'fe"  of  service  among 
the  poor,  because  it  seemed  to  fill  out  and  per- 
fect the  lessons  of  equality  she  had  already 
learned  at  home.  And  by  the  close  of  college 
Miss  Addams  resolved  that  she  would  not 
preach  to  the  heathen,  but  would  "live  among 
the  poor"  in  her  own  land.  Her  particular 
service  there  would  be  the  practice  of  medi- 
cine. 

Her  liking  for  science  and  her  views  as  to 
the  future  of  women  combined  to  focus  her  at- 
tention upon  the  same  profession.  She 
believed  in  woman's  intuition,  as  an  "accurate 
.  perception  of  truth  and  justice."  But  too 
many  women  did  iot  confirm  their  knowledge 
by  the  aid  of  that  in  books.  They  were,  there- 
fore, the  subjects  /of  self  deceit  and  fancy,  and 
they  were  fated  to  be  disbelieved  and  rejected. 


To  gain  accuracy, 


let  woman  study  some  physi- 


cal science.       'hen  let  her  test  her  theories  by 


286    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

application  in  the  workaday  world.  So,  she 
would  find  her  "faculties  clear  and  acute," 
Miss  Addams  said  grandiloquently  in  her 
senior  essay,  "and  her  hand  upon  the  magnetic 
chain  of  humanity. ' 

The  young  woman  enrolled  in  a  Philadelphia 
medical  college  in  the  fall  of  1881.  She  com- 
pleted but  a  single  year,  however,  when  a  spinal 
weakness  laid  her  flat  in  bed  and  the  scientific 
course  had  to  be  given  up.  But  for  this 
chance,  Miss  Addams  would  probably  have 
traversed  the  regular  channel  into  an  old  and 
well  established  profession.  As  it  was,  she 
simply  went  adrift,  with  no  port  in  view,  and 
therefore  with  no  inducement  either  to  steer  or 
row. 

What  should  she  do?  The  physician  pre- 
scribed two  years  of  European  travel.  Her 
health  made  this  imperative,  but  her  mind  did 
not  wholly  consent.  She  wanted  to  be  at  some- 
thing. Yet,  since  the  " thing"  did  not  take 
shape,  she  quieted  her  discontent  with  the 
promise  of  further  education.  She  would  pre- 
pare and  prepare ;  no  good  training  could  ever 
come  amiss;  perhaps  the  "uture  would,  pretty 
soon,  miraculously  define  itself  through  the 
mist,  and  she  would  steer  into  an  attractive  and 
busy  haven.  Some  misgivings  may  have 
troubled  her  about  this  kind  of  navigation. 
But  at  present  there  was  nothing  else  for  it. 
And  after  all,  she  frankly  loved  study  and,  per- 
haps, was  not  sorry  to  postpone  for  a  while 
the  rough  work  of  investing  her  talents. 


JANE  ADDAMS  287 

For  two  years,  then,  she  made  Europe  her 
schoolroom,  reading,  viewing  the  art  treasures, 
and  collecting  beautiful  things  with  which  to 
adorn  her  Illinois  home.  She  fairly  feasted  on 
the  accumulations  of  culture  with  which 
Europe  had  stocked  its  galleries,  apparently 
for  such  as  she, — rich,  educated,  and  with  lei- 
sure to  enjoy. 

But  unexpectedly  a  "ghost"  appeared  at  the 
board  where  she  was  dining.  One  midnight, 
with  a  party  of  tourists,  she  sat  on  the  top  of 
an  omnibus  in  the  great  East  End  slum  dis- 
trict of  London.  A  mob  of  men  and  women 
were  gathered  round  a  huckster's  cart,  their 
rags  and  dirt  and  their  haggard  faces  weirdly 
lit  by  the  flare  of  the  gas  lamps.  The  huckster 
was  auctioning  off  a  half-decayed  cabbage — • 
for  it  was  Saturday  night,  and  such  vegetables 
as  would  not  keep  till  Monday  had  to  go  cheap 
— and  the  hungry  people  were  bidding  for  it, 
with  upraised  hands.  The  cabbage  was  flung 
to  the  successful  bidder.  During  a  brief 
pause  he  sat  down  on  the  curb  and  began  to 
devour  his  prize,  raw  and  unwashed,  as  it  was. 
Then  the  higgling  recommenced,  and  the  hands 
went  up.  "The  final  impression  was  not  of 
ragged,  tawdry  clothing  nor  of  pinched  and 
sallow  faces,  but  of  myriads  of  hands,  empty, 
pathetic,  nerveless  and  workworn,  showing 
white  in  the  uncertain  light  of  the  street,  and 
clutching  forward  for  food  which  was  already 
unfit  to  eat." 

For  weeks  after  that,  Miss  Addams  "went 


288    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

about  London  almost  furtively,  afraid  to  look 
down  narrow  streets  and  alleys  lest  they  dis- 
close again  this  hideous  human  need  and 
misery.'  Indeed,  she  was  not  dining  without 
her  ghost,  nor  ever  could  again:  the  ghost  of 
equality  which  she  had  not  murdered  yet,  but, 
for  a  time,  deserted.  How  was  she  persever- 
ing in  the  course  of  life  so  attractively  laid  out 
by  her  father  and  by  the  gospel  story? 

The  answer  shocked  her.  She  was  wealthy, 
she  was  privileged,  yet  she  viewed  poverty  and 
repression  from  the  top  of  an  omnibus,  like 
any  spectacle  on  a  stage.  She  had  the  wisdom 
of  books  and  schools  and  the  culture  of  good 
society  and  the  fine  arts — and  she  was  wearing 
them  like  a  new  cloak,  flaunting  them  in  the 
face  of  unfortunate  millions. 

Here   Jane   Addams    experienced   a   lasting x 
conversion.    What  was  the  use  of  culture,  she  \ 
asked,  if  it  did  nothing  to  "mitigate  the  suf-  j 
ferings  of  the  world,"  but  rather  aggravated/ 
them.     She   could  not  pursue  it  whole-heart- 
edly   any    more.      The    sense    of   its    futility 
amounted  at  times  "almost  to  a  paralysis/      It 
seemed    to    her    she    would    be    happier   with 
nothing  unless  she  could  expend  what  she  had 
for    the    common    good.     She    would    herself 
rather  be  an  ignoramus  and  a  pauper  unless 
some  of  those  in  the  midnight  mob,  with  their 
nervous,  workworn  hands,  could  get  the  things 
they  were  reaching  after-r-food,  leisure,  knowl- 
edge,— the  things  she  had  in  such  abundance. 
A  passionate  longing  laid  hold  of  her  to  belong 


JANE  ADDAMS  289 

to  some  kind  of  "universal  fellowship"  in  which 
each  member  should  for  once  have  his  rightful 
share. 

While  at  home  the  following  summer,  Miss 
Addams  was  baptized  in  the  village  church, 
which  to  a  great  extent  stood  for  the  lofty  fel- 
lowship of  her  desire.  But  with  that  she 
stopped. 

There  was  the  misery,  plain  enough;  but 
what  could  she  do  about  it?  How  should  she 
begin  ?  The  life  of  the  primitive  Christian  who 
"went  about  doing  good,'  and  even  more  so, 
that  of  mediaeval  imitators  was  wholly  inade- 
quate, in  our  day,  the  day  of  social  distresses 
as  wide  as  the  world.  There  was  no  process 
out  of  the  church  or  in  it  that  could  be  made 
to  serve.  Well,  she  would  go  ahead  preparing. 
So  for  five  or  six  years  more  she  continued 
her  unhappy  quest  for  culture.  But  every- 
where now  the  old  ghost  rose  up  before  her. 
The  rich  were  so  rich  and  the  poor  so  very 
pOor;  the  learned  knew  so  much  and  the  igno- 
rant were  so  like  dumb  beasts;  and  both,  to 
judge  from  her  own  experience,  were  so  dis- 
contented ! 

Yes,  the  rich  were  as  discontented  as  the 
poor.  For  Miss  Addams  was  slowly  coming 
to  the  conclusion  that  her  life  was,  after  all,  an 
empty  one.  She  had  seen  pictures,  and  heard 
nr:sic  and  read  books ^  but  she  had  not  lived. 
S .'•}  Ir^d  not  worked  at  any  useful  toil — not 
earned  her  bread,  or  produced  merchantable 
goods.  She  had  not  been  hungry,  or  cold,  or 


290    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

tired;  nor  any  more  had  she  thrilled  in  the 
morning  with  eagerness  or  anxiety  for  the  task 
to  be  done.  She  had  not  kept  house  or  raised 
children,  or  waited  at  sick  bedsides,  or  worried 
over  the  price  of  milk.  She  had  not  concerned 
herself  with  a  ward  election,  or  the  paving  of  a 
street,  or  the  appointment  of  a  new  school 
teacher.  These  were  the  kind  of  things  com- 
mon people  did  every  day.  These  were  real  ex- 
periences. How  much  more  satisfactory  they 
must  be  than  the  mere  reading  of  a  book  about 
experience!  How  gladly  she  would  exchange 
some  of  her  shadowy  book  learning  for  the 
hearty  enjoyment  of  really  being  and  doing 
something. 

In  this  state  of  mind,  she  at  last  began  to  cast 
about  for  an  occupation.  Was  there  no  way 
in  which  a  woman,  who  had  a  plethora  of  study, 
but  who  longed  for  the  experience  of  life  itself, 
could  restore  the  balance?  Could  she  not, 
somehow,  go  and  live  among  poor  people  who 
had  all  too  much  experience,  and  were  over- 
whelmed by  it,  and  stupefied?  Could  she  not 
make  fair  exchange  with  them  so  that  each 
would  have  as  much  as  any?  Could  she  not 
appoint  a  clearing  house  for  social  democracy? 

Miss  Addams  had  already  begun  to  think  of 
renting  a  house  in  the  slums  of  Chicago,  when 
she  heard  of  Toynbee  Hall.  This  was  an  in- 
stitution in  London,  founded  a  few  years 
earlier,  by  Oxford  men;  and  the  "residents"  in 
the  Hall,  so  far  as  she  could  learn,  were  do- 
ing precisely  what  she  wanted  to  do. 


JANE  ADDAMS 


JANE  ADDAMS  291 

Then,  at  a  critical  juncture,  came  the  young 
woman's  second  "conversion."  She  witnessed 
a  bull  fight  in  Madrid.  It  was  a  gory  fray,  but 
she  enjoyed  it — while  it  lasted.  Then  reaction 
followed.  "In  deep  distress  I  felt  myself  tried 
and  condemned,  not  only  for  this  disgusting  ex- 
perience but  by  the  entire  moral  situation  which  . 
it  revealed. ' '  She  had  pretended  to  herself ' 
that  she  wanted  to  reform  something.  Maybe 
she  did,  a  little.  But  here  she  was  still  study- 
ing; still  cheering  at  bloody  bull  fights,  gazing 
curiously  at  hungry  hordes  from  the  top  of 
omnibuses!  Worse,  she  was  still  contenting 
herself  with  the  mere  reports  and  pictures  of 
things.  In  actual  experience  the  silliest  shop 
girl  of  the  slums  was  richer  than  she.  Her  life 
was  empty  of  all  but  the  ornaments.  That  con- 
demnation was  enough.  She  made  up  her  mind 
that,  ' t  come  what  would, ' '  she  would  begin  the 
very  next  day  to  carry  out  her  plan. 

She  talked  it  over  with  her  traveling  com- 
panion, Miss  Starr.  It  became  tangible.  A 
month  later  she  set  out  for  Toynbee  Hall  to 
gather  suggestions  there.  She  had  some  work 
in  hand  and  she  was  happy.  "I  had  confidence 
that,  although  life  itself  might  contain  many 
difficulties,  the  period  of  mere  passive  recep- 
tivity had  come  to  an  end,  and  I  had  at  last  fin- 
ished with  the  everlasting  '  preparation  for  life/ 
however  ill-prepared  I  might  be." 

In  1889  Miss  Addams  secured  a  house  in  a 
depressed  industrial  quarter  of  Chicago.  She 
named  it  Hull  House,  after  the  builder  and  one- 


292    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

time  occupant.  It  was  a  hospitable  looking  old 
place,  with  a  piazza  on  three  sides  and  a  wide 
hall  and  open  fire-places.  Miss  Addams  and 
her  friend,  Miss  Starr,  furnished  it  with  the 
spoils  of  their  European  rambles,  with  prints 
and  photographs  and  handsome  tables  and 
chairs  and  book  cases,  just  as  they  would  have 
done  in  a  fashionable  district.  In  every  way 
they  humored  their  cultivated  and  fastidious 
tastes,  for  this  was  to  be  their  home.  Then 
when  all  was  ready,  they  spread  open  the  doors, 
and  in  a  gracious,  neighborly  tone  invited  the 
poor  to  "come  see  them.' 

Now  the  difficulty  of  her  undertaking  was 
probably  greater  even  than  Miss  Addams  had 
foreseen.  Her  wealth  and  culture  were  indeed 
fabulous  to  the  humble  under-strata  of  society. 
Their  indigence  and  their  mental  stupor  were 
no  more  comprehensible  to  her.  Could  they 
ever  unite  in  genuine  sympathy!  Moreover, 
the  barrier  in  Chicago  was  twice  as  high  as  be- 
tween two  such  classes  in  London;  for  most  of 
the  poor  here  were  also  foreign,  speaking  a 
strange  language,  wedded  to  old-world  customs, 
and  generally  mistrustful  of  the  American-born 
who  hemmed  in  their  little  colony  on  all  sides. 
The  people  surrounding  Hull  House  were  Irish, 
Greeks,  Russians,  Poles  and  Boheniians- 
thirty-six  distinct  nationalities.  Could  she,  the 
daughter  of  an  American  home  and  an  Ameri- 
can college,  clear  away  that  barrier?  Intelli- 
gent men  said  no — her  whole  scheme  was  quite 
quixotic.  But  others,  especially  young  men 


JANE  ADDAMS  293 

and  women,  top-heavy  like  herself  with  educa- 
tion and  eager  for  an  outlet  in  useful  activity, 
flocked  to  her  door  to  offer  help.  So  she 
began. 

In  the  vicinity  of  Hull  House  lived  many 
mothers,  with  families  of  small  children,  who 
had,  perforce,  become  active  bread-winners. 
Some  of  these  women  worked  at  home — finish- 
ing garments,  for  example — where  two  or  three 
babies  tumbling  under  their  feet  were  a  grave 
encumbrance.  Others  worked  in  factories  and 
left  their  youthful  offspring  all  day  without  at- 
tention. In  either  case  the  parents  spoke  a 
foreign  language  and  preserved  foreign  cus- 
toms in  their  homes ;  so  that  the  children,  when 
they  came  of  public  school  age,  were  years 
behind  American-born  pupils.  Here  seemed  a 
practicable  opening.  For  the  women  would 
favor  anything  that  lightened  the  drawbacks 
of  their  wage  earning.  And  they  would  snatch 
at  anything  that  removed  the  handicaps  from 
their  children.  "It's  different  in  America,' 
they  would  say,  "a  boy  gets  left  if  he  isn't 
educated." 

Miss  Addams  started,  for  the  younger  chil- 
dren, a  day  nursery,  where,  for  five  cents  each, 
they  could  be  properly  fed  and  amused,  during 
the  mother's  working  hours.  For  those  a  lit- 
tle older  she  started  a  kindergarten.  And  a 
true  child's  garden  it  was,  where  they  played 
with  their  dolls,  fashioned  artistic  things  of 
paper  and  sand,  talked  to — and,  if  they  would, 
climbed  up  to  kisa — the  madonna  pictures  on 


294:    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

the  wall,  and  heard  stories  of  all  the  heroes  of 
history  and  myth. 

The  foreign  women  who  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  think  of  Americans  as  stand-offish 
and  insolent,  at  first  naturally  suspected  some 
deep  plot  behind  this  kindness.  It  was  the 
strangest  thing!  The  primitive  Christians, 
some  of  them  knew,  and  certain  orders  of 
monks  and  nuns  had  made  it  their  glory  to  bear 
the  tribulations  of  the  poor — but  not  modern 
people  of  culture!  No,  there  must  be  some 
hidden  motive. 

But  the  plot,  if  there  was  one,  remained 
dark.  Motive  or  no  motive,  here  was  help  to 
be  had  for  next  to  nothing.  The  women  and 
the  men,  too,  began  to  trust  Hull  House  and  to 
rely  upon  it  for  aid.  One  day  a  Greek 
woman 's  infant  was  stricken  with  £n  unknown 
illness;  her  husband  was  from  home;  she  had 
no  medicine  and  no  money  to  fee  a  doctor ;  she 
bundled  the  baby  into  a  shawl  and  ran  to  Hull 
House — and  to  her  joy  the  life  was  saved.  An 
Italian  I  ride  of  fifteen,  whose  husband  abused 
her  because  she  had  lost  her  wedding  ring, 
sought  refuge  and  counsel  at  the  House.  A 
man  shuffled  into  the  office  hoping  for  light  on 
the  legal  phase  of  a  piece  of  business,  or  mar- 
riage, or  burial,  or  what  not.  In  brief,  it  was 
little  by  little  understood  that  Miss  Addams  ) 
and  her  associates  were  "  ready  to  perform  the  / 
humblest  neighborhood  services/'  In  the 
chaos  and  hurry  of  a  great  industrial  city,  they 
were  ready  to  play  the  neighbor  and  friend  and 


JANE  ADDAMS  295 

generous  helper  as  people  so  often  do  in  a 
country  village. 

With  this  confidence  established,  the  "  set- 
tlers, "  as  the  women  called  themselves,  could 
enlarge  their  programme.  They  grouped  into 
a  club  a  few  young  people  who  read  "Romola" 
aloud,  and  found  it  quite  to  their  fancy.  Miss 
Addams  did  not  wait  for  a  second  revelation. 
She  went  to  the  Chicago  Public  Library,  and 
persuaded  it  to  locate  a  branch  in  the  House. 
The  result  may  be  inferred  from  the  words  of 
one  young  man:  "It  was  the  first  house  I  had 
ever  been  in  where  books  and  magazines  just 
lay  around  as  if  there  were  plenty  of  them  in 
the  world,  and  it  changed  the  whole  aspect  of 
life  for  me  to  know  people  who  regarded  read- 
ing as  a  reasonable  occupation." 

The  settlers  formed  classes  in  drawing  and 
modeling,  and  built  a  room  for  the  exhibition 
of  paintings;  and  both  were  "enthusiastically 
visited  by  hundreds  of  people  from  the  neigh- 
borhood. "  Then  they  arranged  a  series  of 
free  Sunday  afternoon  concerts  and  lectures, 
all  of  a  high  quality.  A  gymnasium  and  a 
playground  were  provided  for  the  young  whose 
games  had  all  been  played  upon  the  streets. 
Sewing  and  cooking  classes  were  opened  for 
girls  who  could  not  learn  their  domestic  sci- 
ence at  home.  The  mothers  were  taught,  very 
tactfully,  to  feed  their  children  oatmeal  for 
breakfast  instead  of  bread  soaked  in  tea  or 
wine,  and  for  diseases  resulting  from  unclean- 
liness,  to  bathe  them  instead  of  hanging  a 


296    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

charm  about  their  necksj[  In  regard  to  the  cof- 
fee house,  which  sold  a  scientific  diet,  one 
woman  said  she  didn't  like  to  eat  what  was 
nourishing,  she  liked  to  eat  "what  she'd 
ruther;'  but  the  patronage  of  this  enterprise, 
as  of  all  the  others,  steadily  increased. 

In  a  very  short  space  of  time,  then,  Miss 
Addams  had  satisfied  herself  on  one  question 
that  had  vexed  her  eight  idle  years.  It  really 
was  possible  to  utilize  one's  culture.  The 
people,  in  all  their  destitution,  had  a  lusty,  if 
not  a  refined  appetite  for  the  better  products 
of  civilization.  The  people  could  rise.  Like 
anyone  else  in  the  world,  all  they  needed  was  a 
friend.  And  it  was  possible  for  her  so  far  to 
find  a  plane  of  equality  with  them  that  she 
could  be  that  friend. 

A  few  people  still  cocked  a  weather  eye  for 
the  secret  plot  that  ought  to  underlie  this  phi- 
lanthropy. They  would  be  asked  for  their 
vote,  they  thought,  or  the  "prayer  meeting 
snap"  would  come  in  somewhere — it  was 
only  a  * '  question  of  time. '  But  the  second 
class  of  activities  at  Hull  House  left  not 
an  inch  of  ground  for  the  doubters  to  stand 
on. 

lit  did  not  suffice  Miss  Addams  to  give  away 
her  culture.  She  wanted  something  in  return. 
She  wanted  to  participate  in  the  hearty,  every- 
day life  of  the  people.  She  suspected  that 
their  work  and  play,  their  sorrow  and  joy, 
would  come  a  great  deal  nearer  one's  heart  and 
be  longor  remembered  than  any  of  the  insiab- 


JANE  ADDAMS  297 

stantial  ideas  she  had  acquired  from  booksj 
But  how  could  she  obtain  a  little  portion  of 
this  experience! 

Not  easily,  she  saw.  For  the  people  were 
isolated,  and  did  not  even  share  each  other's 
experience.  The  people  were  lonely.  Every- 
where they  were  lonely.  An  aged  man  and 
woman,  whose  children  had  settled  elsewhere, 
had  to  while  away  the  long  days  with  only 
their  melancholy  thoughts  for  company. 
Young  people  from  the  country  could  not  knit 
up  true  friendships  among  self-centered  tene- 
ment dwellers.  Families  who,  to  get  cheap 
rent,  had  to  live  in  the  quarter,  but  who  prided 
themselves  on  their  connections  outside, 
sneered  at  the  unpretentious  residents  of  their 
street,  and  would  not  "mix'  with  them.  The 
young  men  and  women  native  to  the  quarter 
had  no  club  where  they  could  exchange  ideas, 
or  where  they  could  arrange  a  social  or  a 
dance.  The  races,  dwelling  side  by  side,  ig- 
nored and  despised  each  other.  Whatever 
might  be  their  experience,  they  kept  it  to  them- 
selves, because  while  living  .near  each  other 
they  did  not  live  together,  jbtjow,  then,  could 
a  woman  of  Jane  Addams'  class  hope  to  be- 
come one  of  them?^ 

She  did  not  know.  But  she  did  know  this,* 
that  the  people  were  not  lonely  from  choice.) 
They  were,  many  of  them,  leading  narrow  and 
bitter  lives,  from  lack  of  sympathy  and  help; 
and  they  only  wanted  some  slight  hint  to  make 
them  fly  into  each  other's  arms.  The  best  thing 


298    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

she  could  do  for  the  present  would  be  to 
furnish  that  hint. 

She  began  with  business. 

When  coal  was  high,  she  induced  the  neigh- 
bors to  combine  in  a  co-operative  coal  society; 
and  the  members,  through  the  united  effort  to 
reduce  their  expenses,  became  friends.  Or, 
again,  a  group  of  working  girls  wanted  to 
stand  by  each  other  in  times  of  strike,  or  sick- 
ness, but  did  not  know  how.  With  the  advice 
of  Hull  House  and  the  gift  of  a  month's  rent 
for  a  small  flat,  they  formed  a  co-operative 
boarding  club.  The  original  group  soon  grew 
to  fifty ;  and  that  number  of  girls  at  least  would 
no  more  face  the  storms  of  the  world  without 
sympathy. 

Next,  the  settlers  passed  the  word  that  social 
clubs  might  make  use  of  the  reception  room 
of  Hull  House.  There  was  a  quick  response. 
Reading  and  sewing  circles  sprang  up  thickly. 
The  men,  in  their  social  science  club,  discussed 
weekly  the  current  abuses  and  reforms.  Five 
hundred  working  people  were  trained  to  chorus 
singing.  The  different  nationalities  staged 
their  native  plays.  But  one  girl  said  "she 
wouldn't  be  caught  dead  at  a  lecture,"  for  she 
wanted  ' ( to  get  some  fun  out  of  it ; ' '  and  at  a 
club  where  a  Greek  play  was  being  read  aloud, 
the  leader  overheard  the  president  saying  to 
the  restive  members,  "You  might  just  as  well 
keep  quiet  for  she  is  bound  to  finish  it,  and  the 
quicker  she  gets  to  reading,  the  longer  we'll 
have  for  dancing."  So  for  those  who  pre- 


JANE  ADDAMS  299 

ferred  dancing,  there  was  a  good  floor  and 
music.  Every  one  who  cared  to  stop  in  at  Hull 
House  found  a  social  outlet  suitable  to  his  age 
and_  inclinations. 

^Perhaps  the  most  daring  project  was  that  of 
interpreting  one  race  to  another.^JThe  Social 
Extension  Committee  of  Irish  women  one  even- 
ing invited  Italian  women  to  a  reception.  The 
outcome  is  amusingly  related  by  Miss  Addams. 
"The  Italian  women,  who  were  almost  eastern 
in  their  habits,  all  stayed  at  home  and  sent 
their  husbands,  and  the  Social  Extension  Com- 
mittee entered  the  drawing  room  to  find  it 
occupied  by  rows  of  Italian  working  men. 
They  were  quite  ready  to  be  '  socially  extended, ' 
but  plainly  puzzled  as  to  what  it  was  all 
about."  The  committee  were  worse  per- 
plexed. But  the  Italian  men,  when  they  saw 
what  was  forward,  gallantly  stepped  into  the 
breach.  "Untiring  pairs  of  them  danced  the 
tarantella,  their  fascinating  national  dance, 
they  sang  Neapolitan  songs,  one  of  them  per- 
formed some  of  those  wonderful  sleight-of- 
hand  tricks,  .  .  .  they  politely  ate  the 
strange  American  refreshments.'  The  en- 
tertainment never  lagged;  the  evening  was  a 
proud  success.  The  Irish  women  saw  that 
Italians  were  "quite  like  other  people,  only 
one^must  take  a  little  more  pains  with  them.' 
(Finally,  the  varied  elements  of  the  Hull 
Efeuse  community  were  so  well  fused  that  they 
would  all  wheel  into  line  for  a  concerted  effr 
in  neighborhood  improvement  and  politics. 


300    HEEOINES  OF  MODEEN  PEOGEESS 

The  children  were  armed  with  sharp  sticks, 
and  the  little  girl  who  collected  the  most  waste 
paper  from  the  streets  was  crowned  "queen  of 
love  and  beauty"  on  May  day.  The  women, 
who  now  perceived  that  their  own  weal  was 
identical  with  that  of  their  neighbors,  could 
unitedly  demand  a  better  milk  supply,  better 
car  service,  better  housing.  The  men  could 
snap  their  fingers  at  the  ward  "boss"  and  loy- 
ally vote  together  for  a  representative  who 
would  represent,  and  for  improved  sewage, 
playgrounds,  and  other  things  in  the  gift  of  the 
city. 

I  Thus  in  the  course  of  years  the  individuals 
once  so  diverse  were  welded  into  one  solid, 
social  whole.  They  worked  and  played  to- 
gether. They  were  glad  with  each  other's  joy, 
and  sad  with  each  other's  sorrow.  Their  lone- 
liness and  isolation  were  in  a  great  measure 
overcome,  so  that  the  experience  of  one  was 
accessible  to  all. 

And  what  a  marvelous  experience  that  was 
— the  thoughts,  trials,  and  aspirations  of  thirty- 
six  nationalities,  engaged  in  trades  and  pro- 
fessions literally  without  number.  The 
Greek  fruit  vendor  might  have  speech  with  the 
English  artisan;  the  Englishman  with  the 
Italian  laborer  or  musician;  the  Italian  with 
the  Jewish  tradesman  or  the  Irish  politician, 
and  so  on.  To  share  the  experience  of  all 
these  was  a  culture  in  itself.  Eeally,  these 
people  could  fare  very  happily  without  the 
gifts  of  the  rich.  The  lore  of  a  few  books  was 


JANE  ADDAMS  301 

stale  and  flat  beside  the  fresh  realities  of  their 
infinitely  varied  life.  They  could  soar  by  the 
strength  of  their  own  wings.  Like  anyone 
else  in  the  world,  all  they  needed  was  a  chance. 

And  now,  little  by  little,  Jane  Addams 
found  contentment  stealing  into  her  heart. 
For  she  was  getting  the  return  she  craved.  All 
this  free  expression  of  the  people's  life  flowed 
through  her.  Hull  House  had  become  a  peo- 
ple's home;  and  she  was  one  of  the  peopleTf 

In  the  middle  of  a  busy  morning,  says  Me 
writer,  the  telephone  bell  will  ring:  " Hello! 
Miss  Addams?  No?  Well,  I  would  like  to 
speak  with  Miss  Addams  personally,  please. — 
You  say  she  is  busy?  Yes,  I  know,  but  I'm 
sure  she  will  spare  me  a  moment;  I  am  Mrs. 
Blank,  of  the  North  Shore. — She  wants  you  to 
take  this  message?  You  say  you  can  bring 
me  an  answer?  0,  very  well.  Tell  her  I 
want  to  get  a  monkey  for  a  children's  party. 
— I  know  you  don't  have  monkeys,  but  Miss 
Addams  will  know  of  one;  you  have  only  to 
take  the  message." 

Or  again,  Miss  Addams  is  made  a  willing 
confidante  for  some  interesting  story  of  indus- 
try, or  family  economics.  "I  recall  a  certain 
Mrs.  Moran,"  she  writes,  "who  was  returning 
one  rainy  day  with  her  arms  full  of  paper  bags 
containing  beans  and  flour  which  alone  lay  be- 
tween her  children  and  starvation.  Although 
she  had  no  money,  she  boarded  a  street  car  in 
order  to  save  her  booty  from  complete  de- 
struction by  the  rain;  and  as  the  burst  bags 


302    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

dropped  ' flour  on  the  ladies '  dresses'  and  beans 
'all  over  the  place,'  she  was  sharply  repri- 
manded by  the  conductor,  who  was  further  ex- 
asperated when  he  discovered  she  had  no  fare. 
He  put  her  off,  as  she  had  hoped  he  would, 
almost  in  front  of  Hull  House.  She  related  to 
us  her  state  of  mind  as  she  stepped  off  the  car 
and  saw  the  last  of  her  wares  disappearing," 
and  so  on,  with  quaint,  amusing,  and  yet  pa- 
thetic detail. 

Or,  again,  some  crisis  more  cruel  than  that 
of  starvation  overtakes  one  of  the  neighbors. 
A  high  official  is  assassinated  by  an  immigrant. 
The  American  populace  goes  mad  with  rage 
against  all  foreigners.  Some  old  men  are  ar- 
rested, charged  with  being  anarchists  and  with 
complicity  in  a  plot  to  shatter  the  American 
government ;  they  are  thrust  into  prison,  denied 
bail,  denied  communication  with  their  friends; 
they  await  summary  trial — and  will  be  lucky  to 
have  a  trial,  for  a  mob  storms  outside  the 
prison  wall.  Some  friend  of  theirs  has  the  wit 
to  fetch  Miss  Addams.  The  jailers  know  her. 
They  admit  her  behind  the  barred  doors.  She 
steps  into  the  cell.  The  prisoners  cling  to  her 
skirts,  weeping,  chattering  in  some  eastern 
language, — and  they  tell  her  their  story.  They 
are  old,  poor,  and  sick ;  they  speak  no  English, 
have  been  unable  to  learn  the  cause  of  their  ar- 
rest, have  never  heard  of  the  assassination ;  al- 
though they  once  professed  hostility  to  govern- 
ment in  the  empire  from  which  they  came,  they 
have  only  love  for  America  and  its  laws  and 


JANE  ADDAMS  303 

its  rulers.  They  ask  nothing  but  peace 
and  the  right  to  earn  a  few  pennies  a  day 
until  they  die.  Jane  Addams  hears  their 
story,  substantiates  it,  and  they  are  re- 
leased. 

And  while  these  diverse  exciting  incidents 
succeed  one  another,  through  the  halls  of  the 
settlement  there  passes  an  endless  procession 
of  the  "other  half."  Eesidents  representing  a 
dozen  states;  staying  guests  representing  a 
dozen  countries;  doctors,  lawyers,  journalists; 
governors,  princes,  and  the  most  brilliant  think- 
ers and  talkers  of  the  age;  all  these,  besides 
settlers  high  and  low,  continually  gather  round 
the  Hull  House  table.  And  all  of  them,  like  the 
trembling  "anarchists'  and  the  woman  who 
spilled  her  beans,  tell  their  stories  to  Jane 
Addams. 

In  effect,  the  life  of  a  great  and  varied  world 
flows  through  her :  and  each  part  reveals  itself 
without  reserve,  for  it  does  not  doubt  its  wel- 
come. 

'  '  On  the  whole, ' '  says  one  writer,  ' '  the  reach  V 
of  this  woman's  sympathy  and  understanding  '} 
is  beyond  all  comparison  wider  in  its  span — 
comprehending  all  kinds  of  people — than  that 
of  any  extant  public  man.' 

[No  wonder  Miss  Addams  grew  contented. 
Sne  was  doing  splendidly  what  her  nature  cried 
out  to  do  in  all  the  years  of  preparation.  She 
had  become  a  part — you  might  say  the  heart — 
of  the  whole  living  body  of  society.  She  had 
given  and  she  had  received:  she  had  given  the 


304    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

life  of  culture ;  and  she  had  received  the  culture 
of  life/1 

The"3ane  Addams  that  came  out  of  these  re- 
markable undertakings  was  what  one  might  ex- 
pect. "She  is  always  trying  to  be  incon- 
spicuous, ' '  wrote  one  who  knew  her  well.  l '  She 
likes  some  of  the  elegancies,  for  she  was  born 
to  them.  No  one  could  accuse  her,  for  example, 
of  being  shabby.  She  wears  soft,  grayish 
shades  of  blue  more  than  other  colors.  Her 
tailor-made  suits  are  usually  blue,  and  I  re- 
member one  pleasing  evening  gown  of  that 
color  trimmed  with  rich  Japanese  embroidery. 
Jewels  are,  naturally,  not  in  her  line,  and  she 
never  has  a  hat  upon  her  smooth  brown  hair 
when  she  can  dispense  with  it. '  She  is  a  rather 
smallish,  dark  faced  woman,  gentle  of  manner 
and  soft  of  voice.  She  is  "slightly  stooped  as 
she  stands  with  her  hands  clasped  behind  her 
in  a  way  touchingly  childish,  looking  out  at  an 
audience,  or  at  those  with  whom  she  is  convers- 
ing. .  .  .  They  say  she  had  a  sad  face 
before  she  became  a  professional  neighbor.  .  .  . 
Certainly  her  face  is  sad  now,  though  the  eyes 
are  luminous,  and  the  lips  adapt  themselves 
readily  to  smiles.' 

That  sadness — if  sadness  it  really  is — can- 
not have  been  written  on  her  face  by  any  de- 
feat of  her  personal  ambitions  if^r-again  if — 
she  has  any  personal  ambitions.  (Miss  Addams 
has  been  a  member  of  the  city  school  board. 
She  has  traveled  extensively,  and  lectured,  and 
written  books.  A  master's  decree  was  con- 


JANE  ADDAMS  305 

ferred  upon  her  by  Yale  University,  which  had 
never  before  given  an  honorary  degree  to  a 
womanO!  At  a  recent  national  congress  of  so- 
cial workers  she  was  characterized  to  an  an- 
dience  of  three  thousand  as  "the  first  citizen 
of  Chicago,  the  first  citizen  of  America,  the 
first  citizen  of  the  world ! ' '  And  the  hall  rocked 
with  applause. 

Neither  has  Hull  House  suffered  any  declen- 
sion. It  is  famous  in  every  continent.  Ten 
thousand  people,  besides  the  casual  visitors, 
actually  frequent  its  various  buildings.  It 
knows  no  classes.  And  yet  all  classes  so  deeply 
respect  it  that  they  take  pride  in  appearing 
there  at  their  best.  Of  one  well  dressed  man 
who  came  seeking  employment,  Miss  Addams 
said,  "The  coat  the  man  wears  belongs  to  a 
neighbor.  The  hat  is  the  property  of  some  one 
else.  Perhaps  he  does  not  wear  a  stitch  of 
clothing  he  may  claim  as  his  own.  Beggars  do 
not  come  to  Hull  House — they  are  men  of  self- 
respect  and  pride,  and  they  wish  to  make  the 
best  appearance/'  And  it  was  with  the  idea 
that  there  should  be  but  one  all-embracing  class 
in  national  politics — but  one  class  before  the 
law — that  Miss  Addams  threw  herself  into  the 
presidential  campaign  of  1912. 
^Finally,  what  should  please  Miss  Addams 
most  of  all,  the  movement  initiated  from  such 
natural  and  sincere  motives  has  proved  a  boon 
to  thousands  who  felt  the  same  passion  for  a 
democratic  way  of  life.  Every  city  now  has  its  f 
settlement,  modeled  generally  after  Hull  House,  , 


306    HEROINES  OF  MODERN  PROGRESS 

and  the  great  cities  have  dozens.  Altogether, 
they  constitute  one  of  the  most  striking  features 
of  modern  urban  lifeTj  They  accomplish  things 
Miss  Addams  did  not  dream  of  in  the  begin- 
ning. And  still  investigators — who  by  a  happy 
agreement  with  colleges  can  earn  a  degree  by 
their  work — are  incessantly  busy  finding  what 
more  can  be  done. 

Miss  Addams'  seriousness  of  countenance 
must  come  upon  her  from  those  moments  when 
she  looks  beyond  the  settlement  and  its  small 
success  to  what  she  hopes  may  take  place  in 
society.  For  in  her  thought  she  runs  well 
ahead  of  the  settlement.  Such  an  institution, 
she  says,  is  only  a  symptom  of  the  social 
democracy  to  come. 

Men  have  long  been  equal  in  religion.  Re- 
cently they  have  obtained  a  tolerable  equality 
in  politics  and  education.  But  socially  they 
are  divided  into  a  hundred  groups,  the  tendency 
being  for  each  to  court  the  so-called  "higher' 
groups  and  to  snub  the  lower.  This  separation 
is  detrimental  to  all  classes.  For  no  race  and 
no  class  can  live  to  itself  without  dwindling  to- 
ward mental  priggishness  and  emotional 
penury.  The  health  and  the  wealth  of  each  will 
be  best  enhanced  by  partaking  of  the  thoughts, 
labors,  and  emotions  of  all.  The  settlement 
stands  for  this  new  social  democracy.  But  is 
society  as  a  whole  broad-minded  enough  to  en- 
tertain it?  That  is  a  question  to  cause  melan- 
choly looks.  The  time  is  coming,  Miss  Addams 
prophesies,  when  it  will  be  as  criminal  for  a 


JANE  ADDAMS  307 

woman  to  invite  to  her  dinners  only  those  who 
can  advance  her  socially  as  it  is  now  for  a  pol- 
itician to  buy  votes.  Coming,  surely.  But  she 
recognizes  with  regret  that  both  poor  and  rich 
will  suffer  much  in  their  narrow  spheres  before 
that  time  finally  arrives. 

Miss  Addams  states  her  creed  most  clearly 
in  this  comparison  of  the  uncultivated  and  the 
cultivated  person.  ' '  The  former  is  bounded  by 
a  narrow  outlook  on  life,  unable  to  overcome 
differences  of  dress  and  habit,  and  his  interests 
are  slowly  contracting  within  a  circumscribed 
area;  while  the  latter  constantly  tends  to  be 
more  a  citizen  of  the  world  because  of  his  grow- 
ing understanding  of  all  kinds  of  people,  and 
their  varying  experiences." 

In  her  own  conduct  she  has  exemplified  the 
creed.  Says  one  writer,  * '  She  is  sensitively  at- 
tuned to  the  manners  and  traditions  of  the  most 
privileged  class,  yet  she  meets  the  poorest  and 
the  coarsest  without  a  touch  of  the  condescen- 
sion that  separates  people  more  than  pride.' 
Indeed  the  word  " condescend"  has  no  meaning 
for  her.  For  the  only  "privileged"  class  is  the 
one  that  comprehends  all  classes. 

Miss  Addams  is  a  modern  democrat.  But 
her  democracy  is  not  low  or  vulgar.  It  is  iden- 
tical with  culture:  the  culture  which  Goethe 
defined  as  "entering  into  the  life  of  the  race/ 


THE  END 


CHRONOLOGICAL  OUTLINE 

With  the  purpose  of  assisting  readers  in  making 
for  themselves  a  conspectus  of  each  of  the  lives  here 
studied  and  a  broader  conspectus  of  the  relation  of 
these  lives  to  each  other  and  to  the  events  and  move- 
ments with  which  they  are  bound  up,  this  outline  is 
offered.  It  is  offered  also  by  way  of  indicating  the 
definite  unity  that  binds  together  the  book  as  a  whole. 

1780.     Birth  of  Elizabeth  Gurney  (Fry). 

1792.     Death  of  the  mother  of  Elizabeth  Gurney 

(Fry). 

1797.     Birth  of  Mary  Lyon. 
1800.     Elizabeth  Gurney  is  married  to  Joseph 

Fry. 

1810.  Elizabeth  Gurney  Fry  is  ordained  a  min- 

ister by  the  Society  of  Friends. 

1811.  Birth  of  Harriet  Beecher  (Stowe). 
1813.     Elizabeth  Gurney  Fry  first  visits  New- 
gate Jail. 

1815.     Birth  of  Elizabeth  Cady  (Stanton). 

1817.  Elizabeth  Gurney  Fry  forms  an  associa- 
tion for  the  amelioration  of  the  con- 
dition of  women  prisoners.  Mary  Lyon 
attends  Sanderson  Academy. 

1819.  Birth  of  Julia  Ward    (Howe). 

1820.  Birth  of  Florence  Nightingale. 

1821.  Birth  of  Clara  Barton. 

Mary  Lyon  becomes  assistant  at  Sander- 
son Academy. 

1824.  Harriet  Beecher  (Stowe)  attends  her  sis- 
ter's school  at  Hartford. 

1828.    Mary   Lyon   becomes   Miss    Grant's   as- 
sistant at  Ipswich. 
309 


310       CHEONOLOGICAL  OUTLINE 

1830-32.     Elizabeth    Cady    (Stanton)    attends  the 
Young  Ladies'  Seminary  at  Troy. 

1832.  Harriet  Beecher  (Stowe)   moves  to  Cin- 

cinnati. 

1833.  Harriet  Beecher  (Stowe)  visits  Kentucky. 

1834.  Mary  Lyon  begins  the  plans  for  her  fe- 

male seminary. 

1836.  Harriet  Beecher  marries  Calvin  E.  Stowe. 
Corner  stone  for  Mt.   Holyoke  Female 

Seminary  laid. 

1837.  Mt.  Holyoke  Female  Seminary  opens. 
Clara  Barton  begins  teaching  in  a  dis- 
trict school. 

1838.  Elizabeth  Gurney  Fry  visits  France. 

1839.  Birth  of  Frances  E.  Willard. 

1840.  Birth  of  J.  Ellen  Horton  (Foster). 
Elizabeth  Cady  marries  Henry  B.  Stan- 
ton. 

1841.  Florence  Nightingale   decides  upon  her 

life  work. 

1841-53.     Florence   Nightingale   studies   in   Euro- 
pean hospitals. 

1843.     Julia  Ward  marries  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Howe. 

1845.     Death  of  Elizabeth  Gurney  Fry. 

1847.  Elizabeth   Cady  Stanton  moves  to  Sen- 

eca Falls,  N.  Y. 

1848.  Woman's  Rights  Convention  at  Seneca 

Falls,  N.  Y. 

1849.  Death  of  Mary  Lyon. 

1850.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  moves  to  Bruns- 

wick, Maine. 

1851.  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  meets  Susan  B. 

Anthony. 

First  chapter  of  " Uncle  Tom's  Cabin" 
appears. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  OUTLINE       311 

1852.  " Uncle  Tom's  Cabin'1  is  published  in 

book  form. 

1853-4.    Florence  Nightingale  in   charge   of  the 
Harley  Street  Home,  London. 

1853.  Judith  Ellen  Horton  (Foster)  moves  to 

Boston. 

1854.  Florence  Nightingale  goes  to  the  front  in 

the  Crimean  War. 

Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  addresses  the 
New  York  Legislature. 

1854-7.    Clara  Barton  is  clerk  in  the  Patent  Of- 
fice. 

1856.    Florence    Nightingale    returns   to    Eng- 
land. 

1858.    Frances  E.  "Willard  attends  Northwestern 

Female  College. 

Frances  E.  Willard  joins  the  Methodist 
Church. 

1861.  Birth  of  Jane  Addams. 

Julia  Ward  Howe  writes  the  "  Battle 
Hymn  of  the  Republic." 

Florence  Nightingale  opens  a  training 
school  for  nurses  at  Liverpool. 

Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  helps  form  the 
National  Loyal  League. 

Clara  Barton  nurses  soldiers  in  Wash- 
ington. 

1862.  Clara  Barton  serves  on  the  field  of  battle. 
1865-73.     Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  president  of  Na- 
tional Woman's  Suffrage  Association. 

1867.    Julia  Ward  Howe  elected  to  the  Boston 
Radical  Club. 

1867-69.     Clara  Barton  lectures  on  the  Lyceum  cir- 
cuit. 


312       CHEONOLOGICAL  OUTLINE 

1868.  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  is  a  candidate 
for  election  to  the  House  of  Kepre- 
sentatives. 

1868-70.     Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  edits  "The  Revo- 
lution." 

1868.  Frances  E.  Willard  goes  to  Europe  for 

two  and  one-half  years. 

1869-81.    Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  lectures  on  Ly- 
ceum platform. 

1869.  Judith    EUen    Horton    marries    E.    C. 

Foster. 

Clara  Barton  goes  to  Europe. 
Julia  Ward  Howe  espouses  the  woman's 

suffrage  movement. 

1870.  Clara    Barton    serves   as   nurse   in    the 

Franco-Prussian  War. 
New  England's  Woman's  Club  is  founded. 

1871.  Frances    E.    Willard    becomes    dean    of 

Evanston  College  for  Ladies. 

1872.  J.  Ellen  Foster  admitted  to  Iowa  bar. 
Julia  Ward  Howe  leads  Woman's  Peace 

Conference,  London. 

Julia  Ward  Howe  becomes  president  of 
New  England  Woman's  Club. 

1873.  Clara  Barton  returns  to  America. 

1874.  Frances  E.  Willard  resigns  as  dean  of 

Evanston  College  for  Ladies,  and 
later  becomes  president  of  Chicago 
W.  C.  T.  U. 

Frances  E.  Willard  becomes  correspond- 
ing secretary  of  Illinois  W.  C.  T.  U. 

Under  Florence  Nightingale,  National 
Nursing  Association  provides  nurses 
for  the  poor  in  their  own  homes. 


CHEONOLOGICAL  OUTLINE       313 

1876.    Frances  E.  Willard  advocates  woman's 

suffrage. 

1878.    Jane  Addams  enters  Eockford  College. 
Julia  Ward  Howe  becomes  president  of 
the  Association  for  the  Advancement 
of  Women. 

1879-98.    Frances   E.   Willard,   president  of  Na- 
tional W.  C.  T.  U. 

1881.  Clara  Barton  establishes  the  American 

Association  of  the  Red  Cross. 
Jane  Addams  enters  a  Philadelphia  med- 
ical school. 
1881-3.    Jane  Addams  spends  in  Europe. 

1882.  Clara  Barton  secures  amendment  of  the 

Geneva    Treaty   to    provide   for   Red 
Cross  in  time  of  peace. 
Iowa  becomes  a  prohibition  state. 

1883.  Frances  E.  Willard  founds  and  becomes 

president  of  World's  W.  C.  T.  U. 

1884.  W.  C.  T.  U.  votes  to  support  the  Pro- 

hibition Party. 

1885.  J.  Ellen  Foster  resigns  from  office  in  Na- 

tional W.  C.  T.  U.  and  is  elected  presi- 
dent of  Iowa  W.  C.  T.  U. 

1888.  Frances  E.  Willard  becomes  president 
of  American  branch  of  International 
Council  of  Women. 

J.  Ellen  Foster's  offer  to  help  the  Na- 
tional Republican  Committee  is  ac- 
cepted. 

1888-1910.    J.  Ellen  Foster  president  of  Woman's 
National  Republican  Association. 


.TM       CHRONOLOGICAL  OUTLINE 


1889. 
1893-1902. 

1896. 

1898. 


1902. 
1904. 

1906. 


1908. 


1910. 


1912. 


Jane  Addams  opens  Hull  House  in  Chi- 
cago. 

Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton,  honorary  presi- 
dent of  National  Woman's  Suffrage 
Association. 

Death  of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe. 

Clara  Barton  goes  to  Armenia  to  relieve 
the  victims  of  oppression. 

Death  of  Frances  E.  Willard. 

Clara  Barton  serves  in  Spanish  American 
War. 

Death  of  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton. 

Clara  Barton  retires  from  presidency  of 
the  American  Eed  Cross. 

J.  Ellen  Foster  detailed  to  study  condi- 
tions of  women  and  child  workers  in 
the  United  States. 

J.  Ellen  Foster  appointed  special  agent 
of  the  Department  of  Justice  to  inspect 
United  States  criminals  in  federal  and 
state  prisons. 

Death  of  Julia  Ward  Howe. 

Death  of  Florence  Nightingale. 

Death  of  J.  Ellen  Foster. 

Death  of  Clara  Barton. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Addams,  Jane,  280-307;  child-  teaches      in      Sanderson 
hood,  281;    school  educa-  Academy  in,  36,   37. 
tion,  283-284,  286;   trav-  Association  for  the  Advance- 
els,    287;    occupies    Hull  ment   of   Women,   organ- 
House,  291;    Hull  House  ized,  211. 
activities,  294-299;   influ- 
ence of  Hull  House,  304; 

in     campaign     of     1912,  Barton,  Clara,  147-177;  early 

305;  social  democracy  of,  education    of,    148,    149; 

early  self -consciousness  of, 


306-307. 

Addams,  Hon.  John  H.,  fa- 
ther of  Jane  Addams, 
280-283. 

American  National  Associa- 
tion of  the  Red  Cross,  at- 
tempts to  found,  168; 
founded,  169;  service  in 
times  of  peace,  171-173; 
service  in  Armenia,  173; 
service  in  Cuba,  174;  re- 
organization of,  176. 

Amherst  Academy,  Mary 
Lyon  attends,  36. 

Andrew,  Governor  John, 
friend  of  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  195. 

Anthony,  Susan  B.,  first 
meets  Mrs.  Stanton,  78; 
close  alliance  with  Mrs. 
Stanton,  76,  77,  85;  cam- 
paigns for  woman's  suf- 
frage in  Kansas,  81; 
business  manager  of  The 
Revolution,  82. 


150-152;  early  education 
in  nursing,  151 ;  teaches 
school,  154;  government 
clerk  in  Washington, 
155,  156;  acts  as  nurse 
for  wounded  soldiers  in 
Washington,  157;  acts  as 
nurse  at  the  front,  160; 
at  Culpepper  Court 
House,  160;  at  Cedar 
Mountain,  161 ;  at  An- 
tietam,  161 ;  at  Freder- 
icksburg,  162;  at  Morris 
Island,  162;  in  Europe, 
165;  learns  of  Red  Cross 
work  and  society,  167, 
168;  organizes  peace 
service  of  Red  Cross,  171; 
directs  Red  Cross  serv- 
ice in  Armenia,  173;  in 
Cuba,  174;  retires  from 
active  service,  176;  dies, 
176. 
"Battle  Hymn  of  the  Repub- 


Antietam,     Battle    of,    Clara  lie,"     written     by     Julia 

Barton  at,  161,  162.  Ward    Howe,    197;    first 

Armenia,  service  of  American  sung  by  Chaplain  McCabe 

Red   Cross   in,    173;    ap-  in  Libby  Prison,  198. 

peal  of  W.  C.  T.  U.  on  Beecher,     Catherine,    Harriet 

behalf  of,  240,  241.  Beecher     Stowe     attends 

Ashfield,    Mass.,    Mary    Lyon  her    school    in   Hartford, 

attends  school  in,  33,  34;  93;  opens  girls'  school  in 

317 


318 


INDEX 


Cincinnati  with  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe,  98. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Lyman,  father 
of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, 
90;  character  of,  90;  in- 
fluence on  Harriet's  edu- 
cation, 91,  93. 

Bellows,  Dr.,  attempts  to 
found  Red  Cross  Society 
in  America,  168. 

Birney,  Mr.,  abolition  editor, 
103. 

Boston  Radical  Club,  Mrs. 
Howe  elected  to  member- 
ship in,  200. 

Boswell,  Helen  V.,  political 
work  of,  268,  269. 

Brown,  John,  friend  of  Julia 
Ward  Howe,  194. 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett, 
friend  of  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  112. 

Buckland,  Mass.,  birthplace  of 
Mary  Lyon,  30;  Mary 
Lyon  teaches  in,  37,  38. 

Byfield  Academy,  Mary  Lyon 
studies  in,  36. 

Cady,  Daniel,  father  of  Eliza- 
beth Cady  Stanton;  in- 
fluence on  her  early  char- 
acter, 61-63;  assists  Mrs. 
Stanton  in  woman  suf- 
frage propaganda,  77, 
78. 

Cedar  Mountain,  Battle  of, 
Clara  Barton  at,  161. 

Chicago  Women's  Christian 
Temperance  Union,  Fran- 
ces E.  Willard  becomes 
president  of,  231. 

Churchville,  N.  Y.,  birth- 
place of  Frances  E.  Wil- 
lard, 215. 

Civil  War,  retards  woman 
suffrage  agitation,  78 ; 
hastened  by  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,  112;  interference 
of  England  is  averted  by 


Miss  Stowe's  reply  to 
Christian  Address  of  Eng- 
lish women,  116;  Clara 
Barton  in,  157-164;  ef- 
fect on  Julia  Ward  Howe, 
195-197. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman, 
urged  Julia  Ward  Howe 
to  write  words  for  army 
song,  John  Brown's  Body, 
197. 

Cleveland,  President  Grover, 
receives  petition  of 
World's  Woman's  Chris- 
tian Temperance  Union, 
239. 

Clinton,  Iowa,  home  of  J.  El- 
len Foster,  249-252. 

Commonwealth,  The,  anti- 
slavery  paper,  Mrs.  Howe 
contributes  to,  192. 

Crimean  War,  The,  condition 
of  British  sick  and 
wounded  in,  132,  133; 
Florence  Nightingale 
takes  charge  of  hospital 
service,  134;  she  arrives 
at  Scutari,  135;  her  serv- 
ice there,  136-141. 

Culpepper  Court  House,  Bat- 
tle of,  Clara  Barton  at, 
160. 


Dansville,  N.  Y.,  first  local 
Red  Cross  Society  organ- 
ized at,  171. 

Daughters  of  American  Rev- 
olution, Society  of,  work 
for  child  labor  legisla- 
tion, 274. 

Derbyshire,  England,  home  of 
Florence  Nightingale, 
120. 

Derry,  New  Hampshire,  Mary 
Lyon  teaches  at,  58. 

Dickens,  Charles,  friend  ol 
Julia  Ward  Howe,  187. 

Douglass,  Frederick,  advocates 


INDEX 


319 


woman's  suffrage  at  Sen- 
eca Falls  meeting,  74. 
Durant,  Henri,  brings  Ked 
Cross  Society  to  atten- 
tion of  Clara  Barton, 
165. 

Eliot,  George,  Friend  of  Har- 
riet Beecher  Stowe,  112. 

Evanston  "College  for  Ladies," 
Frances  E.  Willard  dean 
of,  228-230. 

Foster,  Elijah  Caleb,  marries 
J.  Ellen  Foster,  249;  ac- 
tive anti-saloon  lawyer, 
251. 

Foster,  J.  Ellen,  245-279; 
birth,  246;  ancestry,  246- 
7;  early  life,  247;  mar- 
riage, 249;  early  tem- 
perance work,  250;  ad- 
mitted to  bar  of  Iowa, 
252;  forms  law  partner- 
ship with  husband,  252; 
Iowa  adopts  Prohibition 
Constitutional  Amend- 
ment,  254;  active  in  Na- 
tional Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union,  256 ; 
resigns  from  official  posi- 
tion in  National  Wom- 
an's Christian  Temper- 
ance Union,  made  presi- 
dent of  Iowa  Woman's 
Christian  Temperance 
Union,  259 ;  active  in  Re- 
publican politics,  263 ; 
organizes  Woman's  Re- 
publican  Association, 
265;  Red  Cross  work, 
272;  Philippine  Islands 
and  missionary  trip,  272; 
church,  prison  reform  and 
child  labor  activities, 
275. 

Franco-Prussian  War,  The, 
service  of  Red  Cross  So- 
ciety in,  167-168;  ob- 


servation of  horrors  of, 
instrumental  in  suggest- 
ing to  Julia  Ward  Howe 
appeal  to  women  of  the 
world  to  further  peace, 
203,  204. 

Fredericksburg,  Battle  of, 
Clara  Barton  at,  162. 

Friendly  Evening  Association, 
organized  by  New  Eng- 
land Women's  Club,  209. 

Friends,  Society  of,  Elizabeth 
Fry,  minister  of,  11; 
criticises  Mrs.  Fry  be- 
cause her  children  mar- 
ried in  other  sects,  22,  24. 

Fry,  Elizabeth  Gurney,  1-29; 
parentage  and  birth, 
early  education,  2-4;  be- 
comes Quaker,  6;  mar- 
ries, 8;  becomes  minister 
of  Society  of  Friends,  11; 
first  work  in  jails,  14; 
establishes  school  in  New- 
gate prison,  16;  criticised 
by  Society  of  Friends  for 
children  marrying  in 
other  sects,  22,  24;  be- 
comes more  liberal  in 
views  concerning  sects, 
23,  27;  dies,  25. 

Fry,  Joseph,  husband  of  Eliza- 
beth Fry,  8,  9. 

Gage,  Mathilda  Joslyn,  joint 
author  with  Mrs.  Stanton 
and  Miss  Anthony  of 
History  of  Woman  Suf- 
frage, 85. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd, 
friend  of  Mrs.  Howe,  189, 
204. 

Grant,  Zilpah,  Mary  Lyon  as- 
sociated with,  38,  39,  41. 

Harley  Street  Home,  Florence 
Nightingale  becomes  sup- 
erintendent of.  130. 


320 


INDEX 


Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  com- 
ment on  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  114;  comment  on 
Julia  Ward  Howe,  212. 

Horton,  Jotham,  father  of  J. 
Ellen  Foster,  246,  247. 

Horton,  Jotham  W.,  brother 
of  J.  Ellen  Foster,  247. 

Howe,  Dr.  Samuel  Gridley, 
husband  of  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  185-189;  founder 
of  Perkins  Institute  for 
blind,  185;  teacher  of 
Laura  Bridgman,  185; 
character  of,  186;  editor 
of  The  Commonwealth, 
192. 

Howe,  Julia  Ward,  178-214; 
early  life,  179;  educa- 
tion, 180;  marriage,  186; 
travels  abroad,  187;  in- 
timacy with  men  of  let- 
ters and  reformers  in  Bos- 
ton, 189;  student  and 
writer,  191,  192;  anti- 
slavery  activity,  194,  195; 
"Battle  Hymn  of  the  Re- 
public," 198;  orator 
friends,  200;  essayist  and 
speaker,  200 ;  preacher, 
201 ;  appeal  to  woman 
hood,  204;  interested  in 
woman  suffrage,  205;  be- 
comes president  of  New 
England  Woman's  Club, 
210. 

Hull  House,  founded  by  Jane 
Addams,  291;  activities 
of,  294-299;  influence  of, 
304. 

Illinois,  Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union  of, 
Frances  E.  Willard,  cor- 
responding secretary  of, 
233. 

International  Committee  of 
the  Red  Cross,  foundation 
of,  165;  brought  to  at- 


tention of  Clara  Barton, 
165,  166;  convention  at 
St.  Petersburg,  272. 

Iowa,  Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union  of,  or- 
ganized, 253;  secures  pro- 
hibition constitutional 
amendment,  254 ;  elects 
J.  Ellen  Foster  presi- 
dent, 259 ;  withdraws 
from:  National  Woman's 
Christian  Temperance 
Union,  261. 

Ipswich,  Mass.,  Zilpah  Grant's 
Academy  at,  38-42. 

Janesville,  Wisconsin,  early 
life  of  Frances  E.  Wil- 
lard spent  on  farm  near. 
215,  216. 

Johnstown,  N.  Y.,  birthplace 
of  Elizabeth  Cady  Stan- 
ton,  59. 

Keiserwerth,  Germany,  Flor- 
ence Nightingale  studies 
Lutheran  hospital  in,  129. 

Lane  Theological  Seminary, 
Lyman  Beecher  president 
of,  97;  Calvin  E.  Stowe, 
professor  in,  100;  center 
of  an  ti -slavery  contro- 
versy, 103. 

Liverpool  Training  School 
for  Nurses,  opened  by 
Florence  Nightingale,  143. 

Lyon,  Mary,  30-57;  birth  of, 
30;  hardships  of  early 
life,  31,  32;  studies  at 
Sanderson  Academy  at 
Ashfield,  34;  in  Amherst 
Academy,  36;  in  Byfield 
Academy,  36 ;  assistant 
in  Sanderson  Academy, 
36;  taught  in  Ashfield, 
37;  in  Buckland,  38;  in 
Derry,  N.  H.,  38;  in 
Ipswich,  Mass.,  38;  South 


INDEX 


321 


Hadley  selected  as  site 
and  school  named  Mt. 
Holyoke  Female  Sem- 
inary, 42;  starts  canvass 
for  funds  for  new  school, 
43;  school  opened,  46  j 
death,  56. 

Mandarin,  Florida,  school- 
house  and  church  for  ne- 
groes built  and  conducted 
in,  by  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  117. 

McKinley,  President  William, 
commends  Red  Cross, 
175;  orders  bodies  of  sol- 
diers dying  in  Spanish 
War  sent  home  for  burial, 
273-274. 

Morris  Island,  Clara  Barton 
at,  162. 

Mott,  James,  presides  at  Sen- 
eca Falls  suffrage  meet- 
ing, 73. 

Mott,  Lucretia,  influence  on 
Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton, 
68,  72-74. 

Mt.  Holyoke  Female  Sem- 
inary, site  chosen,  42; 
canvass  for  funds  for,  44- 
47;  first  session,  47; 
methods,  48 ;  Mary 
Lyon's  conduct  of,  48- 
56. 


National  Loyal  League, 
founded  by  Elizabeth 
Cady  Stanton  and  others, 
79.  ' 

National  Nursing  Association, 
organized  in  England, 
143. 

National  Prison  Labor  Com- 
mittee, formed,  276. 

National  Relief  Assocation  of 
the  Red  Cross,  J.  Ellen 
Foster's  connection  with, 
272. 


National  Society  of  the 
Daughters  of  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution,  work  for 
child  labor  legislation, 
274. 

National  Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union,  Fran- 
ces E.  Willard  corre- 
sponding secretary  of, 
233 ;  president  of,  234 ;  en- 
dorses woman's  suffrage, 
237;  organization  of, 
252;  endorses  Prohibition 
party,  257-259 ;  with- 
drawal of  Iowa  Woman's 
Christian  Temperance  Un- 
ion from,  261. 

National  Woman's  Suffrage 
Association,  Elizabeth 
Cady  Stanton  president 
of,  82;  until  1893,  85. 

New  England  Woman's  Club, 
organized,  206;  work  of, 
207;  Julia  Ward  Howe 
president  of,  210. 

Newgate  Jail,  condition  of, 
14;  work  of  Elizabeth 
Fry  in,  16-20. 

Nightingale,  Florence,  120- 
146;  birth,  120;  early  ed- 
ucation, 121,  122; — in 
nursing,  123-125; — in 
philanthropy,  126 ;  stud- 
ies hospitals  and  nursing, 
127;— -abroad,  129-130; 
superintendent  Harley 
Street  Home,  131;  as- 
sumes direction  of  relief 
and  hospital  work  in  Cri- 
mean War,  135;  activity 
there,  136-141 ;  returns 
home  invalid,  142;  death, 
145. 

Northwestern  University, 
Frances  E.  Willard's 
connection  with,  228,  230. 

Papertree  Club,  organized  by 
Julia  Ward  Howe,  210. 


322 


INDEX 


Patent  Office,  Clara  Barton 
clerk  in,  155,  156. 

Peace  Service  of  the  Red 
Cross,  171-173. 

Perkins  Institute  for  the 
Blind,  established  by  Dr. 
Samuel  Gridley  Howe, 
185. 

Pillsbury,  Parker,  joint  editor 
with  Elizabeth  Cady 
Stanton  of  The  Revolu- 
tion, 82. 

Pittsburgh  Female  College, 
Frances  E.  Willard 
teaches  in,  225. 

Polyglot  Petition,  The,  pre- 
sented to  President 
Cleveland,  239,  240. 

Prison  Labor  Committee,  Na- 
tional, formed,  276. 

Prohibition  Party,  257-264; 
endorsed  by  National 
Woman's  Christian  Tem- 
perance Union,  257-258; 
J.  Ellen  Foster's  criticism 
of,  261-262. 


Red  Cross  Society,  American 
Association  organized, 
169;  service  in  times  of 
peace,  171-173;  service  in 
Armenia,  173;  reorgan- 
ization of,  176;  conven- 
tion at  St.  Petersburg, 
272;  First  Local  Society 
in  U.  S.,  171,  172;  In- 
ternational Committee, 
165,  166;  National  Re- 
lief Association,  272; 
service  during  Franco- 
Prussian  War,  167-168. 

Republican  Party,  J.  Ellen 
Foster's  work  for,  263- 
271. 

Revolution,  The,  woman  suf- 
frage organ,  edited  by 
Mrs.  Stanton  and  Parker 
Pillsbury,  82;  Susan  B. 


Anthony,  business  man- 
ager of,  82. 

Rockford  College,  Jane  Ad- 
dams  student  at,  284, 
285. 

Roosevelt,  President  Theodore, 
commissions  J.  Ellen  Fos- 
ter to  investigate  condi- 
tion of  women  and  chil- 
dren in  Philippines,  272; 
and  in  the  United  States, 
274. 


Sanderson  Academy,  founded, 
3'4;  Mary  Lyon,  assistant 
in,  36-37. 

Sanitary  and  Christian  Com- 
mission, forerunner  of 
Red  Cross  Society,  160. 

San  Juan,  Battle  of,  Clara 
Barton  and  the  Red  Cross 
at,  174-175. 

Saturday  Morning  Club,  or- 
ganized by  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  210. 

Savery,  William,  influence  of, 
on  Elizabeth  Fry,  5. 

Scutari,  horrors  in  hospital 
at,  132,  133;  Florence 
Nightingale  at,  135-140. 

Seneca  Falls,  N.  Y.,  home  of 
Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton, 
71;  first  woman  suffrage 
convention  at,  72;  Dec- 
laration of  Sentiments, 
72-73. 

Severance,  Caroline  M., 
founds  New  England 
Woman's  Club,  206. 

Siboney,  Cuba,  Clara  Barton 
and  the  Red  Cross  at, 
174,  175. 

Smith,  Gerrit,  influence  on 
Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton's 
anti-slavery  views,  65, 
66. 

Smith,  Hannah  Whitall,  Four 
Voices  of,  261. 


INDEX  323 

Somerset,  Lady  Henry,  friend  92 ;  religious  development 

of    Frances    E.    Willard,  of,   93-96;    schooling,  97; 

242.  teaching,     98;     visit     to 

Sorosis,   organized,   208.  Kentucky,   99;    marriage, 

South     Hadley,     Mass.,     site  100;    domestic   life,    101; 

of    Mt.    Holyoke    College,  interest    in    anti-slavery, 

42.  103;    early   writing,    104, 

Spanish  American  War,  Clara  105 ;   Uncle  Tom's  Cabin, 

Barton  and  the  Red  Cross  108-111;    fame,    112-114; 

in,  174,  175;  J.  Ellen  Fos-  of   Beecher   family,    113; 

ter's  work   in   sanitation  reply    to    Christian    Ad- 

in,  273.  dress  of  English  women, 

Stanton,  Elizabeth  Cady,  58-  116. 

88;    birth,    59;    girlhood,  St.  Thomas's  Hospital,  opened 

60,  61;  education,  62-64;  in    London    by    Florence 

marriage,    67;    interested  Nightingale,  142. 

in    woman's    rights,    68;  Sumner,    Charles,    friendship 

Seneca   Falls   convention,  for    Julia    Ward    Howe, 

72-73;       Declaration      of  185,   194,  200. 

Sentiments,    74 ;    becomes 

speaker      for       Woman's  _..,         m,      , 

Suffrage,    75;    connection  Tlltoj?>     ^do^  tri^fute,  to 

with   Susan  B.  Anthony,  Elizabeth   Cady   Stanton, 

76-77;      interference      of  ^               ,    „               „.  . 

Civil    War    with    woman  Town  a?d  ,°o™tiy  .Plu^ or: 

suffrage  work,    78;    nom-  &amzed01b/    Julia    Ward 

inates    herself    for    Con-  _          )weW  „      •  /. 

gress,  80;  edits  The  Rev-  Toynbee     Hall,     mfluence    on 

olution,  82;    president  of  Hul1  House>  290>  29L 
National    Woman's    Suf- 
frage    Association,      82;  Uncle    Tom's    Cabin,    writing 
death    of,    85;     domestic  of,  109;  sale  of,  110;  in- 
traits,    86;     position    of,  fluence    of,    111;    abroad, 
87.  112. 

Starr,  Ellen  Gates,  associated  Underground    Eailroad,    Ger- 

with  Jane   Addams,   291,  rit  Smith's  home  station 

292.  on,     66.       Henry     Ward 

Stone,   Lucy,   friend  of   Julia  Beecher    and    Calvin    E. 

Ward    Howe,    200,    204-  Stowe  aid  negress  to  es- 

205.  cape  over,  103. 

Stowe,  Calvin  Ellis,  marriage 

to  Harriet  Beecher,   100;  TT.  ,             ~               ,.    -,     , 

professor   at   Lane  Theo-  Victoria,    Queen    of   England 

logical     Seminary,      100,  received  copy  of  polyglot 

101 ;    professor    at    Bow-  petition,  239. 
doin  College,  107. 

Stowe,    Harriet    Beecher,    89-  White,       Amanda,       girlhood 

119;    birth    of,    90;    par-  friend  of  Mary  Lyon,  35, 

entage,  90;   childhood  of,  36. 


324 


INDEX 


Whittier,  John  Greenleaf, 
comment  on  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,  111;  on  Mrs. 
Howe's  poems,  193. 

Willard,  Frances  E.,  215-244; 
birth,  215;  early  life,  216- 
219;  education,  220-224; 
death  of  her  sister  Mary, 
225;  travels  abroad,  226- 
228;  dean  of  Evanston 
"College  for  Ladies,"  228; 
interested  in  temperance 
work,  229 ;  president 
Chicago  Woman's  Chris- 
tian Temperance  Union, 
231 ;  secretary  of  Illinois 
Woman's  Christian  Tem- 
perance Union,  233;  cor- 
responding secretary  Na- 
tional Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union,  233 ; 
president  National  Wom- 
an's Christian  Temper- 
ance Union,  234;  lecture 
work,  234,  235;  espouses 
woman's  suffrage,  236 ; 
organizes  World  s  Wom- 
an's Christian  Temper- 
ance Union,  240;  Poly- 
glot petition,  239;  inter- 
ference in  ATI  ••.  "va,  240; 
relations  with  J.  Ellen 
Foster,  253;  with  Mrs. 
Foster  and  the  Iowa 
Woman's  Christian  Tem- 
perance Union,  255-260; 
later  life,  242;  devotion 
to  her  mother,  233,  242. 

Woman's  Christian  Temper- 
ance Union,  of  Chicago, 
Frances  E.  Willard  presi- 
dent of,  231; 

of  Illinois,  Frances  E.  Wil- 
lard, corresponding  secre- 
tary of,  233; 

of  Iowa,  organized,  253;  se- 
cures prohibition  consti- 
tutional amendment,  254; 
elects  J.  Ellen  Foster 


president,  259 ;  withdraws 
from  National  Woman's 
Christian  Temperance 
Union,  261. 

National,  Frances  E.  Wil- 
lard corresponding  secre- 
tary of,  233;  Frances  E. 
Willard,  president  of, 
234 ;  endorses  woman's 
suffrage,  237 ;  organiza- 
tion of,  252;  endorses 
Prohibition  Party,  257- 
259;  withdrawal  of  Iowa 
Woman's  Christian  Tem- 
perance Union  from,  261. 
World's,  organization  of, 
238;  polyglot  petition  of, 
239;  interference  in  Ar- 
menian atrocities,  240. 

Woman's  Council,  tribute  of, 
to  Elizabeth  Cady  Stan- 
ton,  87. 

Woman's  Crusade,  Frances  E. 
Willard  and,  229-232; 
J.  Ellen  Foster  and,  250. 

Woman's  Declaration  of  Senti- 
ments at  Seneca  Falls, 
73-76. 

Woman's  Republican  Associa- 
tion of  '\^  United  States, 
organized  by  J.  Ellen 
Foster,  265,  activity  of, 
267-269;  J.  Ellen  Foster 
president  of,  272. 

Woman's  Rights  Committee 
at  Seneca  Falls,  72-75. 

Woman's  Suffrage  Associa- 
tion, National,  Mrs. 
Stanton  and,  82,  84,  85. 

World's  Anti-Slavery  Conven- 
tion at  London,  Mrs. 
Stanton  attends,  influ- 
ence on,  67-68. 

World's  Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union,  or- 
ganization of,  238;  poly- 
glot petition  of,  239;  in- 
terference in  Armenian 
atrocities,  240. 


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